Him, Her
by Hopeblossom
Summary: Natalya has always loved him. She still loves him, despite the miles, languages, and borders that separate them now. However, a new life in a new country will undeniably open up a new perspective; all it takes is one girl to shatter what Natalya had always wanted to believe. Why did Erzsébet even want to be her friend? Human AU, HunBela. R&R!
1. Chapter 1

"You're the girl who loves her step-brother, aren't you?"

"Yes." Natalya paused. "I'm in love with him."

Her words caused the three boys before her to snigger, glancing at one another as then marvelled at this oddity. It was bad enough to have such feelings, but to admit them so shamelessly was funnier still. No shade of embarrassment came to Natalya's face as she bluntly answered the questions addressed to her, and despite being the subject of the conversation, she seemed disinterested and unoffended. She pretended that these intruding classmates had no impact on her; that they weren't disrupting her lunchtime reading. She pretended that she was still absorbing every word on the text before her, even while her the trio hung round her like crowing vultures.

Sometimes her classmates questioned whether she really didn't know that she was being laughed at. Maybe she couldn't recognise things like that. She hardly seemed like the emotional type. Or perhaps this was all some elaborate joke; maybe she was trying to keep advances away by insisting that she loved a family member. Ultimately, she was just peculiar.

"Do you want his cock?" one dared to ask, his cheeky smile widening as he glanced to his friends and enjoyed their amused and gawping faces.

"Of course." She said it without pause, eyes fixed on a single word in her book.

"Fucking hell!" Disbelief. They laughed giddily at this strange girl and her strange honesty. They were about the continue their interrogation when an interruption came.

"Hey," came a firm and slightly scolding voice, "don't speak to her like that. Find something else to do."

Erzsébet was quite the admirable pupil; unlike Natalya, she had plenty of friends. She was talkative and cheerful and warm. She even smiled politely to her peers as they dispersed. They would leave, seeing as she had asked, but that wouldn't stop them laughing over Natalya in private. That wouldn't stop them from informing the rest of their friends, letting the information become muddied along the way: 'I heard she wanted to fuck her brother. Her biological brother!'

"You shouldn't talk to them," Erzsébet advised more quietly, unable not to feel a little startled by Natalya's eyes staring at her, fixed on her own. She stood before her, and although noise and movement occurred around them, to be under this girl's intense look was to be dragged into her insular community of one. "Don't they bother you?"

"Why would they?" There was a challenge in Natalya's voice. Why would someone like her be bothered by people like them? Why would she ever, even once, allow herself to be distressed over their howling laughter? Them, in their safety of their pack and group seemed more vulnerable than her, confident in her loneliness.

But this was the same loneliness that concerned Erzsébet. It didn't seem natural to her that someone should be alone all the time. When she saw Natalya, she almost always wondered if she was lonely. She wondered who she spoke to. What went on in her head. While everybody moved in the canteen around them, bustling by and buzzing with noise, Natalya sat in stony silence. She seemed to always bring books with her; she would sit with textbooks, academic looking, worn paperbacks, books written in the foreign, unfamiliar Cyrillic alphabet, and intently read, her fingers leisurely turning each page when necessary. She shoved earphones in her ears and settled in this tiny world she was able to create for herself. Even now she had earphones in. One hung down so that she could listen to this Other before her - this external world apart from her. Foreigner. An alien.

"They would bother me," Erzsébet offered, smiling reassuringly to the other. "I wouldn't like to have people laughing at me. Especially over something personal."

"People don't laugh at you. You don't need to worry."

Erzsébet paused. She distinctly felt that she was unwelcome here. She had her own friends; she could go back and tell them how prickly Natalya was to be around, how aloof and indifferent and hostile she seemed. They could laugh because it was most likely all an act.

Erzsébet only felt bad for her.

"Can I sit here while I eat lunch?"

"You can sit where you like."

Erzsébet understood that this was the closest thing she'd get to an invitation. Once she sat down, she smelt the smoke on Natalya's hair and clothes; her nose wrinkled slightly at the penetrative stench. She didn't comment. Instead, she invaded and conquered the table. Natalya's book and accompanying bottle of water were soon outnumbered by Erzsébet's plastic containers of homemade foods; the scent of cooked meat and rich tomatoes and garlic sprang from the opened tupperware.

"So," she began, smiling warmly, "you have a crush on your step-brother?" She said the words more gently than those boys had, although she had to admit that it was unusual.

"Yes."

Natalya glanced to her with suspicious interest. Why was Erzsébet prying? They shared a few classes together. But why did she seem genuinely curious? What was she trying to gain? Natalya's heart quickened anxiously. It was easier if people were simply outright with their rejections and mocking words.

"What made you fall for him?"

Nobody had ever asked. For a few moments, Natalya was quiet, but not dumbstruck, looking down at her fingernails as she thought.

"He's handsome," she said, glancing back up. "Handsome and kind."

He wasn't always kind. She didn't know why she called him kind when he had said some very unkind things to her, when she was too direct and hung too close. He didn't want her near him when she was too expressive. He had once told her that her only redeeming feature was her undeniable good looks - make the best of them, Natashen'ka. She frowned to think about it - him.

It was true that Natalya was attractive. There was something graceful in her nonchalant movements; the flicker of her eyes was slow and leisurely, her gaze impassive, and her mouth small and dainty, despite the swear words and sharp insults it produced. She had a slim nose, slim wrists, slim fingers, and a complextion like the full moon illuminous in a winter sky.

"Are you upset?" The question was cautious.

Natalya straightened and shook her head. Then, chin resting in her hand, she eyed Erzsébet. "You have a boyfriend. Don't you?"

"Uh-hm." And now she relaxed. She smiled more easily, and Natalya watched this. Erzsébet paused before speaking, unsure if talking about her own romance would make Natalya feel unsuccessful and jealous. But she seemed expected to speak. "Roderich. D'you know him?"

"No."

"He's got brown hair, and glasses, and he plays a couple of musical instruments. He's pretty cute - I think so at least. Roderich Edelstein." She said his name with softness that Natalya envied.

"Oh."

Perhaps Erzsébet shouldn't have elaborated. But now her affections were showing; the soft, tilted smile wouldn't evaporate immediately, even beneath Natalya's glacial gaze, or the implied disapproval of her monosyllabic expressions. Nevertheless, Natalya was failing to make Erzsébet uncomfortable, and this was why she continued regardless.

"He's smart, too. I think he's a little misunderstood sometimes. Kinda like you, perhaps?"

"Misunderstood?" Natalya repeated, her back straightening a little at the nudging accusation. "Incorrect."

She was correct and Erzsébet was incorrect; she was herself and Erzsébet was other. But despite her earnest response, and her solemn black and white reasoning, she had made Erzsébet laugh.

"What?" Natalya demanded, a little testily. Usually she could understand why people were laughing at her.

"The way you said it." Erzsébet's smile was still broad on her face. She had a wide mouth, Natalya noticed. It wasn't unpleasant. "Incorrect," she imitated, "like a computer, or something."

"Oh." It was softer this time, released gently with a sigh.

There was a small pause. Erzsébet had her head down as she ate some of her meal; she glanced up to nudge the stew she had in Natalya's direction, but apparently Natalya didn't want any. Erzsébet would have pressed if she knew her better.

Instead she said: "So, you're Russian, I heard?"

"No." There was some indigence. "I'm Belarusian." Pause. "And I'm on a scholarship, unlike the rest of you." Now disdain.

The international schools of richer Central Europe were not cheap; Natalya had originally come from a small flat in Minsk. She had never wanted to come and had never wanted the scholarship for her gymnastics, given to her on the basis that she would perform for the school. If it hadn't been for her mother's insistence, she would still be in Belarus. Whether she would be happier there or not was a different matter. In Belarus, she had also been strange - but at least it had been home. Home, with the fluid mix of the two native tongues. The harsh state; the streets named after Lenin in the modern towns, and the rural countryside. The blocks of grey, beige flats, the small interiors. The distrusted, yet not so distant West; an alter ego which Natalya now reluctantly felt that she occupied.

She hated the food here. The language they spoke; the attitudes they had.

"Hey, hey," Erzsébet laughed, "I'm not rich either. I got some money cut off because of my test scores and I live with my grandparents across the border. I spend my life on trains back and forth from this place. You must board here, right?"

"Yes."

"Do you like it?"

"No."

"Do you miss your family in Belarus? Your step-brother?"

"My step-brother is studying in Moscow. He's a Russian," Natalya informed. She disclosed his nationality solemnly. "I don't miss him anymore."

"But you love him still?" Erzsébet asked, obviously confused. She would have assumed that a large part of love would be missing someone while they were absent, even as the ache became more familiar. She would miss Roderich, if they were separated.

"Yes." Natalya shot her a look. "Weren't you listening?"

Part of Ivan's desirability was his unattainability, which Natalya assumed was normal. Many young people adored pop stars, or film stars. People older than them, continuing their own lives, unattached, almost unreal. When Ivan was near, he wasn't all that special. He was still unattainable, due to his status as step-brother, but he was also very much a mediocre person. Up close, sometimes his fingernails were dirty. Sometimes he said cruel things, and most often to her. Sometimes he laughed too loudly, or acted like a juvenile, or got acne, or walked round the house in just boxers and a dressing gown - up close these things were actually very unappealing. A lot of the time, Natalya didn't like him very much at all. How he spoke over her, and was unkind to her, and how she was the subject of his jokes which he always found so funny.

But she maintained that she loved him. Somehow, it made her feel safe, and she had never once tried to find a more suitable replacement.

"Of course. I'm sorry."

Erzsébet wouldn't question it, although Natalya seemed to contradict herself. Instead, she ate her lunch and offered Natalya her friendly smiles and safer tidbits of chatter. What lesson do you have next? Do you like it? Which teacher? Easy, mindless things that lasted until the shrill bell sounded, instructing the pupils to their lessons.


	2. Chapter 2

"Hey. See that girl sitting there?"

"Yes. Natalie? That's her name, isn't it?"

"Nope. Her name is Natalya." Erzsébet smiled to her boyfriend, taking his hands across the table and looking to him. "Can I invite her to sit with us?"

"Well, we only-"

"Before you make your decision I want you to know that I'm literally," she drawled the word, "her only friend. I know we're both busy, but c'mon. It's just one lunch."

Erzsébet had been steadily invading and conquering Natalya's guarded world. She smiled at her when she saw her; she had begun saying hi when they passed, stopping the Belarusian to compliment her and see what it took to make her smile. She invited her over in the classes they shared, patting the seat next to her. Natalya usually gestured vaguely to her work.

She seemed to view Erzsébet as a distraction. Although, sometimes Natalya did seem to forget herself and talk more freely with Erzsébet. If Erzsébet asked her about gymnastics, or philosophers, topics close to her but not too close, Natalya would speak, her eyes often distant for small periods at a time as she thought through her opinions. Erzsébet often had a very mediocre understanding of the topics at hand, but she was happy to sit and listen to her friend.

Roderich sighed, eyes rolling upwards, before he looked to his girlfriend. "Alright," he said, a soft sharpness to the word. He paused for a moment before looking over to her, a slight crease in his brow. "You're far too generous, Erzsébet."

But she was already standing, moving from her chair. Roderich watched how Erzsébet put her hands on the other table; how she smiled her big smile and looked expectantly at the strange girl he had heard about. Unnervingly, Natalya caught his look and stared at him - his eyes retreated. They stayed down while the pair walked back over, Natalya bringing the smell of smoke with her.

Roderich sent his girlfriend a look. He disapproved, though he wasn't going to probe the girl about how or why she had picked up such a useless, nasty habit. Did she have money to burn? Or was she just stupid?

"Hello, Natalie," he said instead, only to earn an urgent look from Erzsébet. "Natalya, I mean. Excuse me."

"Excuse you," the Belarusian agreed as she sat down, those eyes on him again. She was silent as she tucked her selected reading into her bag, and Roderich was relieved for the few moments that her eyes were averted down into the depths of her bag. Erzsébet sat down beside her and smiled between the pair.

"Did you know that you both like classical music?" she asked. Once while studying beside the Belarusian she had politely asked if she could borrow Natalya's free earphone. Instead of sharing, Natalya had given both to her and worked amidst the shapeless noise of the classroom. "Roderich plays the piano, and the violin, and a little clarinet."

"The flute, actually." Roderich frowned a little. Music, his most beloved hobby, was more important to him than anything. His girlfriend should be able to list his three muses. However, he tried not to dwell on it, curious about someone who liked classical music too. "Who are your favourite composers?"

"Dmitri Smirnov." A native Belarusian, of course.

And not one of the greats, Roderich noted. His disappointment and distaste in her answer showed, and while Natalya saw and understood the wrinkle in his nose, she seemed to ignore it.

"I prefer rock music now, anyway," Natalya added, eyeing Roderich, further distancing her tastes from his. She immediately sensed that she disliked him. And perhaps it was prejudiced and unfair to instinctively follow her gut, but she did. It seemed right, because Roderich didn't fit her tastes. She didn't like his carefully positioned hair, or his slightly pouted lips, or the way he held his nose a little high, or his sharp, little accent, or the way he looked at her as if she was his bonded serf. What the hell was wrong with Dmitri Smirnov? Had he wanted her to say something predictable, something Germanic? Was it only Central and Western Europeans, she wondered, who could write classical music worth listening to?

What did Erzsébet see in him?

Natalya had always been clear about her requirements for men: she didn't like sissies, she said - but 'sissy' seemed to encompass so many young men. Their jaws were too rounded yet, she didn't approve of sparse facial hair, or such sloppy, casual dress nor anything stupidly formal in day to day life. She didn't like the overpowering stench of cheap cologne and deodorants; she didn't like boys who had the arrogance to approach her, nor was she impressed by boys who were too cowardly to do anything but watch. Thus, her love was reserved only for Ivan, and the admired Dmitri Smirnov, who was old enough to be her grandfather.

She loved Smirnov, she thought, because his music was so beautiful. She must love him.

"I noticed that when I listened to your music," Erzsébet said, looking to Natalya and smiling as if things were fluid and natural. Her smile was one of such influence, and with such soothing qualities. She smiled to Roderich too. "Roderich wouldn't like it though."

"Of course not," Natalya said decisively. "He fits none of the ideals."

He wasn't aggressive, or radical, or angry, or hardened - he seemed soft and sensitive. She couldn't imagine him armed with an electric guitar and a narrative of resented isolation. She couldn't imagine him knowing small flats and back alleys and cigarette butts sodden on the street, or men hidden in hoodies loitering and waiting, whispering, exchanging, or the stench of vodka, and sweat, and sick stuffed in a room cramped by yelling. She couldn't imagine him knowing anything but comfort and leisure, and expensive music lessons at an expensive school. Roderich may well be a schoolboy, but Natalya saw him and imagined the grandeur of Louis XVI, and she thought too that that was what Roderich would like.

"You think?" Erzsébet asked, glancing to her boyfriend and smiling reassuringly. He wouldn't want to be involved in those sorts of ideals, anyhow, she was sure. Because although he wasn't a neat freak, or even all that tidy, he had the tastes of an aristocrat.

"I've never seen an uptight priss on a violin singing rock songs."

"And I've never heard of Dmitri Smirnov," Roderich said coolly, glancing at Erzsébet expectantly. Wasn't she going to say something already? Put her foot down? She couldn't sit there and condone the unprovoked words of a black sheep she had, for whatever arbitrary reason, decided to favour.

"Well, I have never heard a violin in a rock song."

What?

Erzsébet continued. "But, come on, Natalya. At least get to know my boyfriend before you tear him to pieces." But she smiled at her. Not at him, but at her: some weirdo she'd befriended. Roderich didn't comment, but his distaste with his girlfriend's preferences showed on his face, and how he seemed to disengage with the conversation completely, as if sat at their table by mistake. Erzsébet had not only invaded Natalya's space, but she had brought her prize back to her homeland without teaching her the rules.

"I didn't tear him to pieces. You said yourself that you've never heard a violin in a rock song."

"But I didn't use the words uptight priss." Erzsébet took Roderich's free hand, attracting his attention back, drawing him to her again, and smiled over to Natalya. "We've been together for three years now. I think I know him better than you."

He had been a troubled, lonely boy who Erzsébet had showed kindness to, and who had eventually had the bravery to ask her out. She seemed to have a habit of picking up the castaways, out at sea with nothing to grasp at until she cheerfully dangled her arm in, always having the strength to be a saviour to the lost.

* * *

That afternoon, as they did on the days when Roderich didn't have an after school music lesson and Erzsébet didn't have a swim meet, Roderich and Erzsébet walked each other to the train station. Erzsébet got on a train that hurried over the border, and Roderich got a line to his neighbourhood. She did her school work and often a bit extra, whereas Roderich liked to indulge in after school café visits, hot drinks and pastries, and then retreat to his muses - his music.

Roderich came from a good family (something that Natalya had immediately noticed). He was well spoken and dressed a little too formally for his surroundings. His family even had a short history at the school, though during Roderich's education, that had never done him much good.

As soon as Roderich had started at this school, comparisons to his cousin Gilbert had cropped up. Gilbert, a privately hard working student in what he found interesting, was athletic and well liked. What he did, he won. To hear about him all the time had been bad enough, but Gilbert also went out of his way to humiliate his cousin on a regular basis. Tripping him up to toughen him up, flicking the back of his head when he passed, cracking jokes about his little cousin before his friends, who at the time had seemed like virile giants to Roderich.

It had been a relief when Gilbert had finished school and left, but it didn't change the fact that Roderich was not the confident, athletic man that Gilbert had idealised. Even Gilbert's younger brother could not really fill the gap he had left, despite his athletic build and perfectionist nature.

Roderich supposed that there could only be one Gilbert per family.

"Why did you let your friend speak to me like that?" Roderich asked, his hand in Erzsébet's.

"What?" She had been looking at the cool sky, wondering if it might rain later; if she would have to hurry off the train and get soaked through on the way home. But she glanced to him now, and then nodded. "You mean Natalya? I think... I get the feeling that she's had a hard time."

Her sympathy for Natalya won over her sympathy for him?

Had Erzsébet forgotten his own hard time?

Didnt everybody have hard times?

"She called me an uptight priss."

"And I said she shouldn't have done. It isn't like I agreed with her," Erzsébet pointed out, nudging him gently, her tone still light. She was aware of what kind of impression he gave off. She hadn't really liked him the first time she had met him. In their first year of school together, she remembered sitting next to him in a class, and bickering with him like kids do. She couldn't remember Roderich ever appearing like the victor in their silly arguments about this and that, but she did remember how he used to aggravate her, and how she would come out of the lessons and occasionally impersonate him in a nasally voice to her friends. She had changed dramatically since then, but she wasn't sure if her boyfriend had. "If she offended you, why didn't you, y'know...defend yourself?"

It wasn't her job to fight all of his battles.

Roderich was sweet, and he was sensitive, and he was intelligent, and so talented. Sometimes Erzsébet also wondered if he was a coward, or if he had become too used to depending on her rather than speaking for himself.

"Perhaps I didn't want to pick a fight with her," Roderich said. "I didn't want to waste my time."

Natalya and her sharp, frank words would have left Roderich speechless. Indignant. Perhaps even hurt.

They were quiet for a little while, hand in hand, ambling along the roads. They were both aware that they had, in some way, displeased the other; it was the kind of familiarity that came with long term dating. Roderich knew that Erzsébet's quiet wasn't an accommodating one, and she knew that his silence was stubbornness.

"You were kind of rude to her," Erzsébet said eventually, looking cautiously to her boyfriend.

"Was I?"

"You pulled a face when she mentioned that... Dmitri Smirnvosky guy."

Erzsébet had never heard of him either. She didn't listen to classical music. But Roderich did, and the least he could have done was shown some slight interest. If he had only played along, built on their shared interest, perhaps Natalya might have tolerated him.

"Maybe that's why she called you an uptight priss in the first place," she suggested reluctantly. It made sense to her. "You got her name wrong and then you insulted her."

They went down to the train station together, Roderich indignant and Erzsébet distracted. Her train came first; she hugged him and smiled mildly to him, quietly saying goodbye before getting onboard. And then she left, back across the border, to her home. Left alone, Roderich took a step back, took a seat, and watched the trains go by, the noise ugly to him. With their busy schedules, he might not see Erzsébet face to face for the rest of the week.


	3. Chapter 3

It had been an accident the first time; swim meet lasted from three thirty until four thirty every Wednesday and Thursday, gym practice lasted from three thirty until five every Monday and Wednesday. One Wednesday, Erzsébet had simply waited a little while longer, laughing as her friends left and doing a few more laps, easing her muscles after the competitive races and just relaxing in the quiet pool, unaware of the other sports, and unaware of Natalya. When she had left to change, Natalya had been in the changing rooms too. The Belarusian had eyed her suspiciously.

"You're not a gymnast. What are you doing here?"

The other gymnasts had been chatting amongst themselves, talking about their practice, their friends, their boyfriends, their schoolwork. Natalya had picked a spot far away from them and had changed with her back to them, occasionally overhearing their conversations but not really listening.

"Be observant, Natalya," Erzsébet teased, wrapping a towel around herself. "I'm in a swimming costume. Where d'you think I was?"

"Swimming."

It wasn't a big deal if Erzsébet did a few more laps so that she could meet Natalya on a Wednesday and chat with her, buy a snack from the vending machine and walk her back to her room (if Natalya allowed it). This was what she began doing. They changed nearby one another and Natalya complained that water dripped off of her onto their shared patch of tiled floor.

And then, one day, Erzsébet changed their schedule. She left the pool early. She changed quickly. And then she headed to the gym, and discreetly took a bench; unnoticed by most of the team, she began to watch Natalya. Erzsébet was in plain sight. But they were all so focused, and Natalya most of all, that they didn't pay her any attention.

As usual, Natalya seemed to have distanced herself from the team.

Natalya's idol had always been Svetlana Boginskaya. Though she had retired from the sport by the time Natalya was born, Natalya remembered watching the tapes of her Olympic performances and world championships. Belarus' swan, they had called her. She had three Olympic golds, from team and singular performances, she had five World Championship golds, she had nine European Championship golds. Natalya treasured this information, she had learnt to recite it, and treasured the fact that she had been born in the same city as Belarus' gymnastic pride.

Natalya was stood now on the balance beam now. She had white chalk on her hands and on her feet, which she moved just an inch, aligning her first foot with the small, slim beam; it was high off the floor, a mat far beneath it. She had no music to perform to; Erzsébet was the only one who seemed captivated by her, though the teacher was watching too, standing by the mat.

But Natalya?

She had excluded all of them; their eyes, and their noise, and their movements. Her eyes were on her feet when she moved them precisely, and then they were up, ahead, her jaw up too. And this was what she loved about gymnastics; she loved the grace of it, the strength of it, the detail. What skill did it take to strike a ball with a bat, or to kick one across a field? Was there any art in running simply to be fast?

Natalya raised her arms gracefully as she began. Her fingers were pointed like sharp porcelain, so neat and so deliberate, and yet there was fluidity in her movements; to see her arms rise was like seeing the rising of the sun. She eased herself down, her hands gripped the beam, and she did a handstand, her legs splitting to demonstrate her balance. And then she returned smoothly, the whole movement so natural and so easy to her well trained body.

Entranced by the performance, Erzsébet could admire her. Natalya, always so taut and tense around everyone, seemed so simplistic and leisurely in this demanding environment. She could see her sharp cheekbones and the softness of her neck now her hair was tied back, and she could see the raw strength of her body: her thighs were toned, her shoulders a little broad, her jaw proud and her hip bones like firm, fierce waves against the blue of her leotard.

Natalya moved to the other end of the beam now, her back to it. With only a breath of preparation, she flipped backwards. The first time her body met the beam, her hands held it tenderly, thumbs clasped in the middle, and following through with this, after the next flip, she landed on her feet; her arms rose in the air, finishing the cycle and the motion.

Erzsébet felt her heart stop. How could she not be even a little afraid? How could she be so natural, and so fearless? It was agonising and wonderful to watch her.

Oddly, it reminded her of her first time with Roderich. There was something about how she was watching Natalya, watching her body and movements, that reminded her of how she and her boyfriend had shyly undressed before one another for the first time, Roderich's parents out for the evening and the house quiet. Neither of them had had the confidence of Natalya's performance, and they had filled the silence with awkward, apologetic, yet fond smiles and short laughs.

Watching Natalya was intimate. There was something deeply personal about it, even though Natalya was unaware of her.

The beam was like a tender friend to her, that was obvious, and it was all she focused on. Although the strength it must take for her to perform on it was considerable, every action seemed soft. Even when she let her body fall, her legs either side of the beam, and her hands holding her up and supporting her whole body. To Erzsébet, the outsider, it was frighteningly breathtaking. If her hands hadn't caught her she would have smacked herself against the hard beam. And yet, to Natalya, it was another small thrill of pride. And even though her routine dictated that she strutted over the beam, that she posed like a model at this end and that, that she moved her arms and stretched her legs and pointed her toes for aesthetic immersion of the crowd, this was all for her. This was her domain, her body, and her beam.

Natalya dismounted with flair. She flipped across the beam, tucked in her legs, and turned in the air, her feet landing heavily on the mat. She soon straightened, she raised her arms, she bowed graciously.

She pretended that this was the Olympics, and the Belarusians were in patriotic fervour over her performance. She pretended that she was on track for winning a gold medal for her country. Instead, her coach praised her in English, gave her a pointer or two, and dismissed her for the day.

She had seen Natalya and knew she had no ounce of team spirit. It was a shame, but she wouldn't push a girl, nearly a woman, to integrate. Most importantly, though Natalya had no affinity with the team and did nothing to boost morale, she performed so beautifully that she contributed well.

If she had been more sociable in her approach, there was no doubt that she would have been the team captain.

When Natalya turned and saw Erzsébet on the bench, looking at her with a big, warm smile and excited eyes, she was at first surprised. Then she was irritated. That had been her private performance, her hobby, her talent; she was the best at it, it was hers and hers alone, and she hadn't invited Erzsébet to come along and watch. She had intruded into something special.

She began walking over, brows furrowed, her body having lost that lovely looseness that it had displayed just moments ago.

"What're you doing here?" she asked, firmly, wanting explanation. She snatched her water bottle off the bench and took a few sips, closing the cap afterwards.

Erzsébet had stopped taking any notice of her moodiness, and almost regarded it as play acting. Cats sometimes scratched and bit while they were trying to play, and maybe Natalya spoke harshly and defensively before she could relax. The Hungarian's smile was still bright and giddy.

"You never mentioned you were so good," Erzsébet said, standing, taking Natalya's hands casually in an attempt to soften her, just holding them but not locking their fingers. "Anyway, you're smart enough to know what I'm doing here - I came to see you perform. God, Natalya! As if you never even said!"

Natalya became uncertain. She looked down at her hands, so confident and powerful on the bar, enveloped in Erzsébet's. Was Erzsébet stupid? Her hands were covered in chalk and probably clammy. And those eyes, so focused and so determined, now glanced to Erzsébet, half hidden by soft lashes. Her set jaw relaxed, her lips parted naturally, pink and pretty.

She couldn't tell if she felt touched or simply embarrassed. As she relaxed, something tight happened briefly in her chest.

Nobody ever came to see her. Her family were miles away: it was seven o' clock in Belarus. The sky would be dark and her family would be eating dinner, she supposed. Her sister would be chatting endlessly.

Did she talk about her? Did she miss her?

Of course there were modern inventions now. She could hear their voices on the telephone and speak all the Russian or Belarusian she liked. She could talk to them over the Internet and see their faces, see what they were wearing, see the old world of her own home. They could see her, too.

But those portals were not visits; they were far away, untouchable. It was hard to get a travel passport, and expensive to make a trip. A few months after the school year had began, when most other students went home to their families at Christmas until New Year, Natalya had sat in her temporary room and read a temporary book. She had called her family and heard that they were having fun without her, though they insisted that she was missed. That they wished she was there with them, that she was being a typical teenager and refusing hugs, feigning embarrassment, smiling secretively. It was her first Christmas away from home. Her presents had arrived two weeks later, and by then, the celebrations were long gone and forgotten.

Her family had drank kvass and ate fish, mushrooms, barley pudding, rye bread, draniki. Natalya had come to learn that in Austrian boarding schools, they ate ham, with cabbage, and potatoes, and iced biscuits for dessert.

But Erzsébet had come to visit now; Natalya had not been visited ever since she had arrived in the welcoming west.

"Thanks," Natalya said, looking to Erzsébet and gently pulling her hands out of her grip. Public affection was rare in her country, and she by nature wasn't enthused by it.

Once Natalya had left and got changed, she and Erzsébet began to walk back to her room together. Natalya mostly just hummed to acknowledge Erzsébet's conversation, but she wasn't being rude or hostile. In fact, she seemed shy today. Erzsébet knew that. That confident body on the balance beam had been replaced by aloofness, and furtive glances.

Was she making Natalya uncomfortable?

"D'you every think of wearing your hair up more often?" Erzsébet asked as they went inside and began up the stairs. "It suits you. You looked sophisticated."

"You never tie yours up, either."

"It doesn't make me look sophisticated," Erzsébet answered with a laugh, watching as Natalya opened her door. This was usually where they split off, Natalya in her room and Erzsébet in the corridor.

There was a strange pause as Natalya went inside. Her chest ached, and she was strangely aware of her breathing. She looked over Erzsébet momentarily, as if she was a stranger again, she herself stood in the doorway, guarding her land.

And then she very abruptly said: "Your German is better than mine."

Being an international school, lessons were conducted in English, and the students also slipped into discussing in English too. Natalya had had to learn that from scratch as she hadn't learnt it at home, and she still made mistakes sometimes, her accent heavy. Erzsébet had wondered whether that was why she talked so sparsely.

Nevertheless, German lessons were compulsory. Learning the host language wouldn't hurt, and it especially wouldn't hurt the high number of boarders. Having attended this school for more years than Natalya, Erzsébet's German was good, although Roderich could usually correct something here or there when she said something more ambitious.

"Yeah?" the Hungarian asked, smiling to Natalya. Her eyes momentarily took her in from head to toe. "So what?"

"Make yourself useful and help me with it." Natalya met her eyes and stepped back, letting Erzsébet come inside. It was like a strange and rickety dance they had decided upon. "I don't understand the articles," she added as she closed the door, watching how Erzsébet simply came inside, casual and comfortable.

"Easy, easy," Erzsébet laughed. She could spare another hour. "You just have to be patient."

The boarders' rooms were plain enough. There was a bed, which Erzsébet took as a seat, and a desk, and cupboards, settled against mild, cream walls. Natalya hadn't done much to personalise her existence here aside from her collection of books, and a framed photograph on her desk of she and her family: a tall, fair haired man with a big nose and a big smile, and beside him a curvaceous woman who seemed to be laughing, Natalya next to her looking reluctantly amused.

Just a little while ago, Natalya hadn't even wanted to share her earphones with Erzsébet; now she had invited her into her private land. They sat on the bed together, Erzsébet lying on her side and instructing Natalya on this and that while she made notes.

The Hungarian girl was leisurely. One leg was tucked up a little, her skirt hitched up a little, though nothing indecent. Despite appearing so ladylike and elegant, she often forgot these little details; she forgot about her chipped and ink stained nails, and about the accidental stripe of mascara visible on her eyelid, and about the hairs visible on her knees where she had been sloppy with shaving. She corrected these mistakes, but she wasn't quick to notice.

As Natalya worked, she glanced up and met Erzsébet's legs. She was forced to travel up them to meet her eyes, and she hid her the queasy feeling of discomfort they aroused. She had seen many legs in different locker rooms, but she had never noticed Erzsébet's, or the generous curve of her hip, or the waves of her dark hair, reminiscent of cinnamon sticks and star anise and chocolate, of the warmth of the Mediterranean, splashed over her shoulder.

Erzsébet stayed for the hour and left cheerfully, smiling her careless smile and saying goodbye. Actually, it saddened her to think that Natalya spent so much of her time in that limited room, isolated from the wider world. Her room became silent once more when Erzsébet left, though the smell of her perfume lingered. Natalya tried to memorise the tables of German grammar and get that girl out of her mind, closing her eyes for a moment, with rock music from her earphones filling her thoughts. But even in the mist of the music, Erzsébet was on her bed, smiling to her, teaching her German and complimenting her gymnastics. Her soft, simple smile was paralysing.


	4. Chapter 4

They both knew what a walk around the park on a Sunday afternoon meant. They both felt it in their weary small talk. Isn't the weather good today? How was your test last week? Did you hear that rumour...? But they insisted on holding hands nevertheless, eyes mostly averted from one another, and their smiles uneasy when they did glance over.

When they did sit on a bench, they sat with a small gap between them, occupied by their persistent hands. They didn't face each other for a few moments, eyes ahead, and the silence looming like a person over their shoulders.

"I want to break up with you."

Roderich had known that that was coming, but it didn't make it hurt any less. In fact, the anticipation had only strained his heart further; it had given him too much time to wonder why, and wonder when she had known her course of action. What had he done? What could he do? Would any new efforts seem superficial? Was buying flowers, playing music for her futile by now?

"Yes," was all he could think to say, a sigh in his voice. Yes, he had known that was coming. Selfconciously, he lifted his hand away off of hers, and knotted both of his between his legs.

Erzsébet moved on the bench, shifting so that she could look at him. His defeatism over it only made her feel worse. In fact, it made her feel vaguely annoyed. Any person in love would put up a fight for her. She would put up a fight for Roderich.

She had tried to. She had thought that smiled and kisses and hand holding might've bridged the gap between them. That by hugging him close she would remember why she had first wanted to.

"It's not because of...you," she told him, knowing how she sounded and knowing that he wouldn't believe her. "I still like you. And you're still just as handsome. But... You felt it too, didn't you?"

"I suppose so." He wasn't the one breaking up with her. But now feeling justified to voice his grievances, he said, "I felt that you stopped bothering to see me, if that's what you meant."

"When was the last time you got a train to visit me where I live?" Erzsébet asked, brows furrowing at that little stab of accusation.

When was the last time she had been able to teasingly tell him that his non-existent Hungarian still wasn't very good? When was the last time he had called her on the weekend and not expected her to come to him? To buy a ticket and get the train and waste some time staring out of the window as she sped over the border.

"You're here five days a week and never mentioned that it bothered you." His tone erred on the side of caution. He knew her temper and only admired it when he wasn't on the receiving end of it. He certainly hadn't admired it when they had first met and he had always seemed to be on the receiving end of it.

"I'm here five days a week for school," she corrected him, looking away from him at down at the bench. She wriggled her finger through the hair band hanging around her wrist and stretched it gently. "I live in Hungary. I don't always want to be in your country to see you."

They were both quiet and hurting. Roderich didn't yet understand what the problem was; Erzsébet knew it in her heart and didn't know how to explain it to him. Water glittered on the lake of the pond, ducks swimming leisurely on top, bobbing underwater from time to time, while elderly couples and young parents with children walked by them, taking no notice of the two uneasy adolescents. Dogs barked as they played. Two children were hurrying after one another, laughing and shrieking. There was still a little frost on the grass, and the air was crisp and fresh, but that would change soon. Spring would break through and flowers would rise once more, just as it did every year without fail.

Roderich and Erzsébet were apart from it all, and the world was definitely moving on regardless.

"Is this about travel then?" Roderich asked. Maybe they could fix this. Maybe he had been wrong and he should start visiting Erzsébet more. Maybe he had been entitled.

"No."

"What can I do?"

"I just don't want to be your girlfriend anymore. I'm sorry." She was sorry. She was sorry that he didn't feel the same and that she was forcing this through. She was sorry that his feeling would be hurt, and that his self confidence might be knocked. She was sorry that he hadn't broken up with her and made it just a little easier.

They had come to this park together many times together during their relationship. It was an easy place to spend time together without feeling the need to set up a fancy date. They could do it after school and buy ice cream when they weather was good, and it gave them a place to sit and chat, although Roderich preferred to go to coffee houses, inside with cakes on offer. Erzsébet liked to take pictures of them together, holding her phone out before them and grinning. She felt self conscious to do that in coffee houses and Roderich hated having his picture taken.

"I think we just need to spend more time together," Roderich theorised, looking across to her. "We should go on more romantic dates, I think."

He could do that. They could go to Hungarian parks and Hungarian cafes. They could go to her grandparents' house and laugh shyly and let their hands slip apart. Study together upstairs, or watch a movie. He could take the train home.

Erzsébet looked queasy as she shook her head. She swallowed and looked over to him, looking reluctant and regretful.

"I'm just not attracted to you anymore." She paused, sucking in her lips as she felt an uneasy truth in her chest slide to her stomach. She had to be honest. "The things I used to like just...bother me now. You can be really passive, Roderich, and I used to think that it was calm and nice, but now it just frustrates me. You're so sensitive sometimes that I can't say much of anything."

"So, what? You want a big oaf who picks you up and takes you back to his cave?"

She wanted someone like Gilbert - was that it? She wanted someone obnoxious and athletic and loud, someone masculine, someone who would pay more mind to her body and value her for it. Did she want someone who would assert themselves over her? If this wasn't about dates, and romance, and travel, then what exactly did she want?

"That's not what I want at all, Roderich. I don't know why you're saying that."

She had never been attracted to the type Roderich was referencing.

During her childhood, before he had ever known her, she had always been one of the boys. Her best friends had been boys and she had played just as rough and tumble as them; she had come back with mud on her shoes and grass stains on her clothes and sometimes grazed shins or knuckles. She had hated dresses and refused them consistently, finding them ugly and impractical, and she had always insisted that her hair was cut short. At its longest, her mother had been able to make a tiny ponytail out of it. When the boys played kiss chase, Erzsébet was on their side and kissed the girls' cheeks just like they did.

Nobody had ever made a fuss out of it. Her mother had lamented over it a little, and sometimes strangers had found it hard to identify her sex, but that was easily sorted when she announced, "My name's Erzsébet and I'm nearly five years old."

Puberty had come along and she had started to change: she got her period at eleven, and her breasts and hips had started to show. Her mother sometimes laughed about the irony of her womanly figure compared to her childhood preferences. Erzsébet had began to see the appeal in dresses and skirts, long hair and makeup, and had began to spend more time with friends of her sex - but masculinity had never been hidden from her her, and thus, there was no mystique surrounding it.

She had always preferred the cute boys and had never thought much about playing kiss chase with the girls. It wasn't anything to worry about, at least.

"If you say so." It was easier to think that Erzsébet wanted one of those masculine men and that was why she didn't was him anymore. There were other girls who had the good sense to like sensitive boys like him.

"I don't want to be on bad terms with you," Erzsébet said, looking over to him. "I still care for you."

"Hm. Just not enough." Roderich brushed a hand through his hair and readjusted his glasses, glasses that he didn't even need, before looking to her. "I'll see you at school tomorrow."

He supposed he wouldn't be walking her to the train station anymore. And he'd never have any reason to cross the border to Hungary.

He got up and left, knowing that her eyes would be on him and hating that. He hated the warmth in his cheeks and the warmth in his chest because he knew he was going to cry eventually. Even if she wouldn't see him, it still felt like a failure. Maybe if he didn't cry she'd still like him.

* * *

Of course, the news of this breakup spread. Erzsébet and Roderich had been a familiar and much admired couple. They had seemed perfect for one another, like two primary colours mixed to make something better. Two introverts, one warm and one cold, in their own world, filled with Roderich's music and Erzsébet's smiles.

Erzsébet had talked about her feelings beforehand with a close friend or two, but other than those informed, the news came as a shock, and as sudden as the fall of a guillotine. The rumours reported that Roderich was miserable.

Natalya had heard about it too. It wasn't any of her business, she had decided. It was a shame, she told herself, though she had never known why Erzsébet had ever dated someone like Roderich, or why it had lasted so long. But it was definitely none of her business and it would do her well not to have any opinion on it. She should read more and talk less.

She sat at lunch, earphones in, reading an English psychology textbook and writing down the words she didn't understand. Erzsébet had never tried to reconcile her friendship with Natalya with her friendships with others. Some days she sat with Natalya at lunch, some days she didn't. Some days Natalya wasn't visible in the canteen, some days she was.

A hand knocking mutely on the table before her interrupted Natalya's reading. She looked up, taking out an earphone as she did, and saw the heartbreaker herself: none other than Erzsébet Héderváry. She was still smiling, although Natalya noticed that she looked weary. She seemed to have tied her hair back in a rush.

"Can I sit here?"

"Sure."

Natalya pretended that she was trying to finish the last paragraph of her page while Erzsébet took out her lunch for that day. Ever since their impromptu German lesson, Natalya had been avoiding her. She thought that Erzsébet hadn't noticed. She thought it was discreet when she avoided her glance, or walked a little quicker, or eased out of conversations in a hurry.

"I know what you're thinking, and you're right," Erzsébet said, poking her food apathetically. "I don't want to be with too many people right now."

She would get asked about Roderich. Why had she broken up with him? What had he done? Did she know that he was so upset? And that it was her fault? What more did she want, if he hadn't made a vital mistake? Didn't she know how good they were together?

"I wasn't thinking of anything."

"You're always thinking something."

Erzsébet caught her eyes and smiled, wondering what she was thinking now. She knew that Natalya had never liked her boyfriend and she knew that Natalya had been acting peculiar around her. She hadn't asked outright what the matter was, thinking that it might sort itself out.

"What I was thinking was that you look like shit today." Natalya smiled slightly back, and Erzsébet couldn't help but laugh.

"Going through a break up is hard, Nat," she reasoned, resting her cheek on her hand and taking her first bite of food, still poking her fork around a little.

"I heard you started it." Natalya folded the corner of her page and put the book aside, and took her earphones out completely. Her attention was on Erzsébet. Though nobody had told her directly, she had overheard the stories of how Erzsébet had broken up with her boyfriend. The stories varied and portrayed the couple in various different lights.

"I did. It's still hard." Erzsébet took another bite before pointing her fork in Natalya's direction. "What if you had to tell your step-brother that you never miss him? Wouldn't that be hard?"

Natalya paused, eyes away, before she shook her head. "No. I'd tell him that he can be a piece of shit sometimes."

Maybe one day she would. She hoped it hurt. She hoped it hurt like one of his jokes, and she hoped her family brushed off his feelings.

Whether she said it truthfully or for comedic effect, Erzsébet wasn't sure. But it made her smile and shake her head, and perhaps that had been the aim in the first place.

Natalya's eyes lingered on Erzsébet's smiling lips, but only for a moment. There was something painful about being around her; something uneasy about sitting near her, and something that wasn't Erzsébet's fault. She didn't dislike Erzsébet, and she didn't dislike her aromatic perfume, or the way she naturally touched those around her, or even her hitched up skirt when she had lay on her bed.

It was something else that Natalya wanted to avoid. She just didn't know what it was.

"Well, it was hard for me. I don't have your way with words," Erzsébet smiled, before sighing. "Someone coughed the word bitch behind me today. Then laughed."

"Who?"

"Oh, I don't know. There was a group."

"Tell me who and I'll burn them with the end of a cigarette. Knife them."

Erzsébet laughed. "Don't let the teachers hear you," she warned, "that's a threat. And really, it's not good to have violence like that in your mind."

While it could be assumed that her intent was humorous, it didn't exactly seem like a lie when Natalya made those sorts of threats, though she had never touched anyone or even raised her voice. The was just something about her; something about those narrowing, feline eyes, the way she tilted her jaw, her acrobatic strength and her blunt attitude. Maybe she did have a temper. Maybe in her past life, when she had lived in Minsk and spoken no English, she had had a temper.

"It's not good to call girls bitches," Natalya said with a shrug. Erzsébet wasn't a bitch. She was kind, and careful, and soft. It wasn't fair that someone could brand her with that common word, and especially not for the sake of Roderich Edelstein.

"Natalya?"

"Hm?"

"Don't hurt anyone on my behalf, but thanks."

Erzsébet wasn't always sure if she was meant to laugh around Natalya, but she couldn't help it. Natalya had an odd way of saying the perfect thing, even when her eyes glanced away or she skulked off to smoke.


	5. Chapter 5

Their after school meeting on a Wednesday had today turned into real leisure time spent together. Rather than escorting Natalya back to her glum room in her glum dormitory, Erzsébet had suggested that they go and find something to eat, as she was always starved after a swim meet and she assumed the same for Natalya, who she had suspiciously never seen eating before.

"I worry about your health," Erzsébet had said as she led the way to somewhere they could buy cheap, easy food. "How come you never eat lunch?"

"You've never seen me eating lunch," Natalya corrected. Erzsébet had become used enough to that small, flicker of a smile that she knew the Belarusian was simply being pedantic.

"Well, alright then. How come I've never seen you eating lunch?"

"I don't like the food here."

Natalya had come to learn quite quickly that looks were important. She had never had much of an awkward phase as a child, even if she might look at old photographs and cringe with distaste. She had been lanky, but never tall, with quite the precocious stare. Puberty never did invite much of a curve to her hips, but since taking up gymnastics, that had been something to be thankful for; puberty had never offset her balance with big breasts or sudden weight or a growth spurt. Puberty had only nurtured her attractiveness - one thing Ivan could admire her for.

She remembered the time she had overheard him saying it. He and a friend had been sat together at the kitchen table, studying with stagnant tea in mugs beside them, and books sprawled all over the table. Ivan, so tall and so broad, had seemed odd hunched over his notebooks, scribbling down notes. While there had been conversations about their work and their answers, they had drifted off into accidental chit chat here and there as they tried and failed to focus.

"So, you have two step-sisters?" the friend has asked, glancing up from the boring book before him. "What are they like?"

"The younger is called Natalya and the older is Yekaterina," Ivan had answered, unaware of Natalya who had passed by and stopped. It hadn't been an accident that she had been trying to overhear snippets of their conversation, curious about the minds of older boys, but she hadn't expected to hear her own name.

"Yes? And?"

There was a thoughtful pause, and then a soft, amused laugh. "Natalya is pretty but not very nice, while Yekaterina is very nice but not very pretty."

Natalya had come to learn that her looks were important, if not her redeeming feature amidst the rubble of her personality. With this new found information, she had gone on to observe the sister who was not as pretty as her; she did so quite ruefully, because she had never looked at her sister and had the word ugly spring to mind. Yekaterina could be fussy and sensitive and even a little bossy if the mood struck, but these were all flaws that Natalya was quietly fond of.

"Do you know that Ivan thinks you're ugly?" she had asked Yekaterina one day, leaning in her sister's doorway and looking at her, wondering if Yekaterina was aware of things that she was not. If she was unaware, it was better than her sister heard it from her. They were blood siblings, whereas Ivan had been brought over by his Russian father, with a different last name that Natalya had refused to take. Neither of them spoke a word of Belarusian and didn't see reason to learn, and while this was true of a number of Belarusians, there was a difference.

"Oh?" Yekaterina couldn't tell if Natalya told her simply to hurt her feelings. "Lots of other boys think I'm pretty, so I don't mind."

Gymnastics had placed a further importance on Natalya's body, and on the balance between strength and grace. It was important that she didn't surpass such a height or such a weight. Natalya had picked up smoking out of habit: her father smoked, her step-father smoked, Ivan smoked, and a handful of the gymnasts smoked. She had come to learn that it helped her deal with spontaneous stresses that her diary would have to wait for, and it made her feel more secure that she wouldn't add on an extra pound or two. Because gymnasts were only valuable in their youth, nobody cared much about their bodies or innards when they reached their thirties, forties, and fifties.

It was an expensive and ugly habit, she would admit, but she didn't smoke too frequently, by her own standards. She didn't replace her meals with cigarettes and wouldn't call herself nicotine dependent. She would just prefer to skip an Austrian meal in the middle of the day. Sometimes she smoked instead.

Erzsébet led Natalya into a cafe. While she had been hoping to force Natalya to share a slice of cake with her, Natalya said she didn't like cake, that she had no sweet tooth, so they shared a plate of fries instead; Natalya ate them with exaggerated pleasure just to prove to Erzsébet that she wasn't secretly starving or underfed. It made Erzsébet laugh, although she still found it very strange that a gymnast would also be a smoker. As a swimmer, gaining weight was gaining muscle, and that could only ever be good.

"Do you still miss Roderich?" Natalya asked in a patch of quiet in their conversation. It had been weeks since they had broken up. They weren't speaking right now, but Erzsébet hoped that one day they would.

"Sort of. Not really." Not in the way that Natalya was asking.

"How can you say both?"

"I think when you become really accustomed to seeing one person or one thing in your life in a certain way or in certain routines, it's always weird when it changes or it's gone," Erzsébet explain, smiling to Natalya. "The first time I met you on a Wednesday, you got all peevish about it. Now you'd be offended if I didn't come."

"I wasn't peevish. You were intruding."

"See? And now I'm not anymore." Erzsébet smiled to Natalya, and then nodded to the plate. "Last fry. It's yours."

They finished their meal, and while it seemed convenient that Erzsébet would catch her train now and Natalya would go to her so called home, they lingered around one another, both expecting the other to make an excuse for them to spend time with one another.

"What about your step-brother?" Erzsébet asked. "Are you still in love with him?"

Natalya glanced over to her with a nonchalant face. "That's none of your business."

They both knew, in the quiet of that answer. There had been no defence or indigence and certainly no passion. What Ivan meant to Natalya, Erzsébet couldn't be sure, but she didn't love him in the way she had led them all to believe. She didn't seem to like him very much. Perhaps she admired him, perhaps he was just an excuse to ward away possible intruders.

"Oh? So maybe there's another boy you like?"

"Yeah," Natalya said dryly, her voice disdainful. "I accidentally fell in love with Roderich."

"Don't be cruel." Erzsébet was smiling though, if only because the image of Roderich and Natalya dating was so ludicrous. She still liked Roderich, and admired him. Just didn't love him anymore. It was something that Natalya didn't seem to accept or understand: you either loved or you hated, she said, unwilling to accept the nuances in her own relationships.

At the time of year, the sky was already a rich velvet blue, mingled with violets and partly covered by the rolling clouds that wandered by. The first stars were visible, like tiny pin pricks on a piece of cloth. Erzsébet offered to take Natalya home due to how chilly it was getting, but Natalya led them to the school field instead, where the grass was dry enough to sit on. She asked if she could smoke and Erzsébet allowed it, although she didn't like it.

The school grounds at this time of year were the only thing Natalya had to offer. The room she dwelt in wasn't hers, nor was this country hers, but she had access to a school field and nobody was on it.

"Do you miss your other other family members very much?" Erzsébet asked, watching how Natalya blew the smoke away from them, and how she watched the sky above them.

What went on behind the guarded borders of her mind?

"I don't think my sister always liked me."

Yekaterina had never understood why Natalya had insisted so much about Ivan. She didn't like Natalya's blunt language, or her grim attempts at what could or could not be humour. She didn't like her cigarettes, nor did she like Ivan's cigarettes, which she thought may have been an influence.

But she knew that Natalya worked in strange ways. She knew that when Natalya offered her small kindnesses, like making her cups of tea, or when a new headband spontaneously appeared in her room, that that was her showing her feelings. She knew that Natalya's silence wasn't always disinterest, but sometimes a fear of saying something inadequate in the face of her own grand displays of tearfulness.

"That isn't what I asked." Erzsébet's hand was curled in the grass beside Natalya's free one. Her fingers covered Natalya's briefly and comfortingly, though her touch only served to stiffen Natalya's back. "A person doesn't have to like you all the time to like you. That'd be weird."

"Do you miss your parents?"

"They're not that far away. It's just more convenient to live with my grandparents, financially."

Of course she missed them a little, but it was hardly the same as Natalya's situation. She missed coming home and hearing her parents. She missed watching television with them in the evening. She missed sitting with her mother on her bed when everything felt wrong, but they weren't that far away; she travelled to Budapest during every break and stayed with them, which was a luxury Natalya didn't have.

Natalya smiled, and looked over to Erzsébet. "That isn't what I asked."

Erzsébet laughed. "You think you're so smart, don't you?" she asked. "You can sit there with a cigarette, with all the things we know about lung cancer in this day and age, and you can sit there and smoke one," she said, reaching across to try and grab it.

"You're the one who insists that nothing is black or white," Natalya said, though she did put out the cigarette now, if only so that Erzsébet wouldn't burn herself trying to grab it.

"Nothing is. You should know that; I've seen all the philosophy books you read." Erzsébet sighed happily and looked up to the sky, and then at Natalya. "So, what's your conclusion? About life?"

Her smile was so wide and so inviting that Natalya wished she hadn't asked. Why did Erzsébet want to know her miserable conclusions of the human experience on planet Earth? Her opinion of it was that the search for happiness was a futile one, which only served to hurt others due to the selfishness of the individual. She hadn't yet decided on the presence of a god, but if they did exist, she assumed they were a sadist. Her Orthodox upbringing hadn't protected her from drawing these conclusions.

So she put it in her simplest terms, which wouldn't ache: "It's shit."

"I don't think so," Erzsébet remarked easily afterwards, looking over Natalya. "I don't know how anyone can look at that sky and see anything but opportunity."

It had gotten darker, and the stars glinted more brightly against the black backdrop of the sky.

"There's a whole universe out there," Erzsébet went on, marvelling at the night, "and we should make the best of it."

It made Natalya's heart ache. Erzsébet was full of promise, full of hope, and it made her nauseous because she couldn't believe in it. It repelled her because maybe she didn't want to accept it - being around Erzsébet was both ataraxy and agitation. She was her only friend, and yet despite this comfort, the physicality of her was so irritating. Her smiles were inflaming and her legs were a shock, and the droplets of water on her skin on a Wednesday, the healthy ruddiness of her skin, were excruciating details. Natalya's eyes were downcast, on the grass rather than the stars, and Erzsébet soon noticed.

"Hey," she murmured, sitting close to Natalya. That strong gymnast, master of her own world, now sat melancholic before her confronted with the whole universe. And Erzsébet couldn't help it; she couldn't help wanting to protect her, in some way, though Natalya was so sure that she didn't need protecting and that nobody worth anything would ever need protecting. She remembered the softness of Natalya's neck when she wore her hair back; she could have fallen off the gymnastics apparatus and easily broken it. Her skill saved her at every step and every jump, but Natalya couldn't be so skilled in every portion of her life.

Perhaps leaning over and kissing her wasn't protection, but it had seemed right. Erzsébet was gentle, and as Natalya had met her eyes just before their lips had met, it had seemed mutual. It had seemed mutual for the moment that Natalya was relaxed against her, and for the moment that she allowed Erzsébet's fingertips to hold her cheek.

"I'm not like that."

Natalya's words were stark against the softness of the night, yet her widened eyes shone, like ripples of moonlight on a body of water.

"I've never been like that," she repeated, harshly brushing away the hand that reached to hold her shoulder, pushing it back like a shield shoving back a sword. "I don't know why you think I'd be like that." Her words spilt from her like venom from a snake.

"Natalya, I don't think you're anything," Erzsébet said, instinctively standing as Natalya did, following her with urgent footsteps. The moon watched them.

Natalya had once remarked that the moon was the same in every country and every region, hoping to share her comfort with Erzsébet. In Austria, and Belarus, and Budapest.

"You think I'm some sort of homosexual." She spat the word. In Belarus, they said гамасек. While there was such fury in her words, there was fear in her body; the gymnast trembled on her balance beam. "Fuck off."

"I'm sorry, Natalya." Erzsébet watched her and stayed back now, her brows furrowed. She didn't understand what was going on. Had she made a genuine mistake, or acted on an inconvenient truth? What if Ivan had kissed her first and disappointed her - would that have been better or worse?

All she could say was sorry.

"Leave me alone."

Both of them shook as those words came between them. Erzsébet didn't question it, but she watched Natalya with miserable eyes. Natalya's eyes were still wet, gleaming with intensity in the same that way that hot coals burned white, and all she did was simply turn to leave, stalking off across the field and leaving Erzsébet motionless, knowing she had nowhere to go but home.

This wouldn't have happened in Belarus, Natalya decided. This was the fault of outside forces and had nothing to do with her. In Belarus, a boy would've kissed her. He would've kissed her in summer, which was more romantic. They would have been warmed by the sun rather than watched by the moon; her fingers wouldn't be blue and her breath wouldn't tremble with each quick breath from her freezing nose, nor would her teeth chatter. Her eyes wouldn't be wet, and she wouldn't feel as though someone had taken the dark depths of the universe and shoved them into her cramped and unwelcoming chest.


	6. Chapter 6

Natalya couldn't sleep that night. How could she be expected to sleep? She had retreated to the outside corner of the building after leaving the field, tucking herself against the cool, unyielding brickwork and lighting a cigarette, shaking slightly in the cold as she inhaled and blew. After putting it out, she headed to her room and hurried up the stairs, jogging up them and slipping into her room.

The first time she had met Ivan, she remembered feeling resentful. She remembered her mother's slim hands on her shoulders, a new wedding ring coiled around her finger, and she remembered her words: "Be nice, Natalya. Or else your father will hear about it."

Her father had been the clumsy head of their household: she loved him but could not admire him. When she thought of him, she thought of him and her mother later at night, past her bedtime when she couldn't sleep. She remembered sometimes peeking through the door to see her mother washing up, her stiff shoulders, her weary complaints, and she remembered her father's hands on her hips and her waist, rumbling reassurances from the back of his throat, charred with smoke and burnt with vodka. She remembered them arguing later in the evening when she was actually in bed, she and her sister both awake side by side, and Yekaterina fretting about it in the morning, twisting her fingers over the breakfast table; her father's cheerfulness and then his moods in the evening, because he worked all day at that fucking job, all for his wife to sigh around the house and eye him like litter. For what?

They weren't like that in front of them. Their father didn't raise his voice to them. Fetching him drinks and cigarettes was a kind of honour, though Yekaterina seemed to prefer staying in the kitchen, and bowing her head as she helped. Their father had played with them as babies and he held them near often, but their mother had helped Yekaterina with her schoolwork and Yekaterina had tried to help Natalya. Nevertheless, it was their father who told the best jokes and gave better hugs; their mother bathed them and cleaned and seemed to sigh a lot.

So it had been hard for Natalya to accept a step-father and a step-brother. Ivan had been fifteen, his face still round and his body seeming to grow continuously taller without a predictable halt, according to this father.

"He's handsome," Natalya's mother had said various times, mulling over the half child who was technically in her care. Yekaterina had agreed with her, believing that he would become a handsome man. Natalya supposed that he was good looking. He was tall, yes, and he had soft, fair hair. He smiled too often though; Natalya thought it made him look like a halfwit.

But she wanted to see what her mother saw, in her father and presumably her step-father, and what she thought other women could see in Ivan.

Natalya knew how this life worked. She knew it when her mother asked if the boys she knew were more than friends, and she knew it when she had seen Yekaterina hanging around the blocks of flats with Danik, who was a year older and worked at the refrigerator plant in the city. She heard it in the conversations of her classmates, and she assumed she would find it in herself.

Never being the passive type, she hunted for it in Ivan.

Lying in bed now, Natalya almost felt like she was dead. The lights were switched off and her room dark, the curtains drawn and blocking any light. Most people were probably asleep at this time. Instead, she lay here breathing, and staring at the ceiling. She traced her fingers across her bottom lip and remembered how Erzsébet had scalded her.

In Belarus, she was sure that this wouldn't have happened. A girl would not have aggravated her like that. A girl would not have kissed her. She would have married, she would have smiled to her mother as she showed her the ring, as she presented a pregnancy, his hand there, holding her, and his body on hers in the evening; his eyes on her, his mouth on her, him inside of her. It would have been easy. She could have endured and lived in this way, without Hungarian girls on her mind.

She missed home, but that didn't stop her thinking of the Hungarian.

Their eyes had met before that kiss. Only briefly, because Natalya couldn't help but look at Erzsébet's lips, chapped in the cold, drawing near hers. She hadn't wanted to look at her long, but she had leant in anyway, and she had wanted to be near to her.

She closed her eyes now. Reached down, pulled the waistband over her hips, wiggled out of her pyjamas, kicked them with her foot to the end of the bed beneath the covers. She lay still for a little while. She remembered the uneasiness of Erzsébet's uncovered legs on her bed, and she touched her own hip bones, feeling them as if for the first time.

How did women live together? She wrinkled her nose and her hands stilled. Didn't need to think of that. This wasn't a life, but a touch, and from her own hand. Didn't mean anything. A man could touch her hips too. Ivan could touch her hips.

She remembered Erzsébet's face when she talked to her about philosophy. Erzsébet smiling and nodding along, not truly very interested, but happy to watch Natalya furrow her brows over it, and how she would take Erzsébet's questions and look away to think on them, lips a little pursed.

Natalya had read all those books, but Erzsébet seemed to be educated in a different way. The way she saw the world was different and less rigid. Natalya saw death and she saw possibilities.

Now, Natalya brushed across the curve of her abdomen. Her fingers brushed the hair below, which she assumed Erzsébet must have too. They were one in the same here, and yet they were not. Natalya knew, simply by knowing Erzsébet and never by particularly looking, that her breasts were bigger.

She didn't like to think of that. Nor did she like it when she thought of Ivan's chest, hairs on it, the muscle beneath the skin and the different hips bones, the different hair, the boxers he wore which she had seen mixed amongst the washing.

Uncharacteristically, she gave up: she reached down for her pyjamas, groping around to find them, and lifted her hips to dress herself. She rolled onto her stomach and lowered her cheek to the pillow, looking out at her room, unsure that she could sleep tonight.

Here in Austria, she had seen men and men and women and women walking out in the streets together. Their hands tied, sometimes embellished with rings, sometimes not. Their smiles and their kisses. Strange German words of endearment that Natalya did not want to hear.

She could only imagine what her mother would have said if they had peered out of the window together and seen Yekaterina with a Danika rather than Danik. She would have been embarrassed, probably, and whispered about it to her new husband in the evening, in bed with him, their lamps still on while they read side by side.

But it was her fault. Her mother had sent her her and pushed her into the arms of the Hungarian.

* * *

When Erzsébet got home that evening, after a subdued evening trip on the train, her grandmother had heated her dinner in the microwave. The smell of hot food, spiced, warming meat and salted vegetables: recipes that her grandmother had doubtlessly learnt from her mother and which Erzsébet's mother cooked too.

It was nice, too, to come home and speak Hungarian.

"You've come home late," said Erzsébet's grandmother as Erzsébet came into the kitchen. Her husband looked up and smiled to see Erzsébet, having loved his granddaughter from the moment of her birth. Their daughter had had a daughter and there was something marvellous about that. His wife agreed.

"I'm sorry." Erzsébet looked over and smiled to them apologetically. "I was with my friend. Studying. She's bad at German and I kinda promised I'd help."

She wasn't a good liar, nor was she concentrating. When she took a bite of dinner she burnt her tongue.

Both her parents and grandparents knew about Roderich. Erzsébet hadn't exactly told them that they were broken up. It was bad enough to feel it in the air at school, so she didn't want to discuss it with her family. They'd be concerned, because Roderich was a nice boy, and they had seemed like they liked each other so much.

During dinner, she politely answered her grandparents' questions about her day. She excused herself fairly soon but kissed their temples goodbye, heading to her room.

Her mind was on Natalya.

Had it been wrong to kiss her? Wrong not only in a personal sense, but wrong as an absolute? Had she taken advantage of her in some way? Intruded?

And more importantly, what if Natalya never wanted to speak to her again? What if she hated her?

Erzsébet wished Natalya wouldn't see her as so far apart. She wasn't an Austrian. She didn't belong in that school - it hadn't been predestined. She wished that Natalya would tell her more about her homeland, so that she could better understand who she was and what she held dear. She wanted to tell Natalya about her own homeland too. She wanted to hear their languages.

Erzsébet sucked in her lips as she felt her eyes water. She glanced to the door, glad to see it closed, and then looked over her hands, and then decided on closing her eyes. Her throat felt tight.

The best thing to do seemed to be to get under the bed covers. She tucked herself in and curled up her legs, and reached for her phone to call her mother.

It had been clear from the start that Erzsébet had taken after her father. She had been born with tufts of dark hair like his and had been kept unaware that for nine months prior he had talked about the expected son. It wasn't something she had been directly told, but sometimes she had seen it when he had met her young friends who she played with at break: her best friends were boys. His feelings had seemed mixed when Erzsébet belatedly took an interest in dresses and the like.

"Mama? It's me," Erzsébet began, toying with a curl of her dark hair between her fingers.

She remembered how hurt she had been when other girls had mocked her for her thick eyebrows, and the dark hairs on her legs. She had gone home and asked for a razor, which her mother delivered to her before the next sports lesson.

"Hi, Bözsi," her mother's voice was fond and smiling through the phone. "Are you alright?"

Erzsébet's mother had ached the first time she had seen Erzsébet in the bathroom, pulling at one eyebrow and plucking hairs from it, her eyes forced to redden because it was such a sore task. But she had been happy, too, when Erzsébet had grown out her hair and asked her how to plait it.

"I think I made a mistake and now I don't know what I'm meant to do." Erzsébet could feel her throat getting tighter and her eyes getting wetter.

"Oh, Erzsébet... What did you do?"

Erzsébet had never done much wrong. The school reports of her had always been bright and complimentary and Erzsébet's mother had always read them with pride, sat beside her daughter and asking her about things here or there, Erzsébet chirping back about this class and that teacher.

"Me and Roderich broke up a little while back, and I kissed someone else tonight and I think that they're angry with me and I don't know if I should've done it."

"They?"

"She."

Erzsébet supposed that that was an important factor. Perhaps her grandparents didn't need to know, but if her mother was going to fix anything, she would have to know about that.

Nevertheless, the small silence scared her. Her heart beat very fast when she heard her mother's sigh, not sure if that was disapproval or upset or anything in between.

"Well," her mother began, "is the girl...?"

She didn't know how to word it. In the case of her own daughter, she had simply never asked, not worried or hostile enough to the idea of it. Sometimes she had watched her with a creased brow and wondered, but she had never wanted to directly pose the question, and she had never asked the opinion of Erzsébet's father, either, sure that he may have thought the same thing once or twice.

Erzsébet had found Roderich and they had forgotten. Erzsébet's father, when sent pictures of him, had remarked that he hardly looked like a man. Erzsébet's mother had shrugged and smiled and told him to relax.

"I don't know."

There was a little more silence.

"Maybe you just scared her, Bözsi."

In those words, Erzsébet could feel her mother stroking her hair away from her beating forehead. She could feel her wiping her tears and kissing her temple. But she also worried for Natalya. She had never meant to scare her. She had never meant to hurt her.

"Yeah," Erzsébet agreed. She paused. "I love you." It was as much a request as a statement.

"I love you too, Böszi. You'll feel better about things in the morning."

Erzsébet's mother remembered how sometimes she had held Erzsébet in her arms very late at night, lulling her to sleep again, and wondered if things would be okay. Once the baby was asleep, she got back into bed with her husband and asked him if he thought things would be okay. She would sometimes wince when he tried to gently touch her aching body, and sometimes he would turn his back to her. Sometimes he would watch his wife with their baby and leave the room.

These conversations and actions were forgotten in the morning. They loved her and they loved each other.


	7. Chapter 7

"Did you see her romantically from the start?"

"No. I just felt kinda bad for her."

"Okay." Roderich swallowed a lump of his food, pushed up his glasses, and looked to Erzsébet. His fingers stretched over his mouth momentarily before slipping away. "Did you dump me because of her?"

Erzsébet was pushing around her food a little bit, and frowned down at her meal. "No. It had nothing to do with her."

"Nothing?" Roderich asked doubtfully, glancing to her over the top of his glasses.

"No, it wasn't like that," Erzsébet reassured, glancing up to him and smiling. Roderich sometimes thought that her smile could melt ice, and grow flowers - when she meant it. "I guess something just clicked. We were in the right place at the right time." She said so very quietly; their whole conversation had been conspiratorial.

"Why isn't she sitting with you then?"

Roderich glanced over the canteen, and in the corner, he could see Natalya, hunched over and reading a well used book; she was alone. While he and Erzsébet had been able to figure out a friendship, had felt it out cautiously due to a mutual desire, it seemed like Natalya, the moody victor in all of this, didn't want to claim her prize. Any normal person would have been all over Erzsébet, Roderich thought, and especially if she wanted them back. Seeing Natalya there, wilfully placing herself into such stupid segregation, made Roderich inhale very slowly, and then sigh deeply.

But Erzsébet only laughed gently, stretching back in her seat and sighing. "It's a long story."

* * *

The bed had been hard as they both sat down: it didn't squeak or sigh beneath them. Their knees almost touched as they angled towards one another. They didn't speak, and had hardly spoken a word the whole time, from the changing room to Natalya's bedroom. Their held breath was caught between them, tight in their chests - still.

Wednesday, of course. Natalya had skipped gymnastics and waited outside the changing rooms; she had nodded her head to Erzsébet and directed her to her bedroom, and held the door for her to let her inside.

"Natalya," Erzsébet murmured, the word carried on a stroke of her breath that disturbed the quietness of the room: her voice was softly urgent and a small crease forming in her brow. "I don't know what's in your head right now and I think you need to tell me what you're thinking, because you haven't spoken to me for nearly a month, which was, y'know, kind of shitty, and all I want is a tiny insight. One glimpse. I'm not asking for much, I don't think; I don't expect anything from you. Ever."

She knew she was talking to much, but it was impossible to stop herself. She didn't even feel as though she was speaking; the voice was a different one, and she listened to it just as much as Natalya did. She watched her very carefully. Natalya's face was melancholic as she touched her, when her hand slipped over hers, like the cool touch of water, but Erzsébet felt her heart unwind and unwind; her breath came out shakily, and she had to swallow afterwards. She didn't speak when she felt Natalya's nose gently brush hers, and her lips on hers, and her fingers curling around her own.

It was perfect, in that moment.

* * *

"It's far too late if she wants nobody to know," Roderich informed, tearing his gaze from the Belarusian.

"Why? I haven't told anyone apart from you." Fear. There was fear in her dismayed eyes, fear in her voice, fear in her fingers that curled on the table. "Did you tell anyone?"

"Erzsébet..." Roderich was smiling ruefully at her. "You're not the most subtle type."

The girls on the gymnastics team had found it odd to see Erzsébet so dutifully visiting their practices. They would watch the Hungarian as she sat on one of the benches, and would watch how she so often took out little clementines from her bag, dig in her thumbnail to break the skin, peel them, and pass one to Natalya when she took a break from her exercise. Natalya eventually started sitting beside her, rather than insisting on standing and leaving quickly, and their heads leant towards each other as they spoke quietly: Erzsébet laughed a lot, and even when Natalya was angry, in one of her incomprehensible muttering moods, frowning moods, close the door too hard moods, she looked at her with such warmth in her face, as if this angry little gymnast was her summer sun.

Erzsébet's friends were similarly curious. They would take turns glancing over when Erzsébet and Natalya sat together sharing lunch.

"What do you think they talk about?" one would ask, peeking over.

"I don't know. That Russian girl's weird," another would say, brushing off the matter.

But the matter was hard to brush off when Erzsébet returned, often with stories of Natalya. It was as if she had travelled to a foreign country and fallen in love with the culture, and a few times too many, she would eagerly inform her friends of the Belarusian. Her name was Natalya and she came from Belarus and she was an amazing gymnast, and if you named something to her she usually had a piece of trivia about it; she didn't like sweet foods but she could eat a ton of sour sweets, she could roll her own cigarettes, she could speak Belarusian and Russian and English and a little Polish.

"Why doesn't she just get it over with and marry her already?" someone remarked when Erzsébet was out of earshot. "I've heard enough about her."

It had been said sarcastically, and had earnt a few sympathetic, amused laughs. But then Erzsébet and Roderich had broken up. The joke was no longer funny, but rather a matter of intrigue.

* * *

"I'm not bent though," Natalya mumbled against Erzsébet's lips, her head slightly bowed. Erzsébet knew better than to challenge her claim: she cupped her cheeks instead and kissed the words away, bandaged them over. She kissed her solemn brow, the centre of her forehead, her temple, nearby the soft whisps of hair.

"I don't care," said Erzsébet as she pulled back, holding Natalya still and feeling the bone beneath her skin. She could feel the power, the tension, perhaps, lying just below the surface. "As long as you come speak to me again. I really missed you."

"Yeah." Natalya linked their fingers and made sure not to look. Her jaw clenched beneath the foreign fingers. "But you're not my girlfriend."

"I know."

"Good."

Natalya turned her head slightly, and Erzsébet's fingers fell from her slowly, like flesh off a bone. If Erzsébet wasn't her girlfriend, then what? What was it when she kissed her? When she held her hand in her dimmed room? The only light that reached them crept through the blinds, long lines like bars of a prison cell.

They were both quiet for a few moments, just holding hands. Natalya was squinting through the blinds and Erzsébet watching her with tiring curiosity. She slipped her hand gently up Natalya's, her fingers covering the width of her wrist and her forearm, but Natalya wrenched her arm away. She put her hand on top of Erzsébet's and pinned it down against the bed.

* * *

"How many people know?"

"I don't know."

"Well, can't you guess?"

"Erzsébet, I don't know." Roderich looked to her apologetically. "A lot of people are talking about it. But it'll pass. These things do."

Erzsébet closed her eyes and took a breath. This wouldn't help. When she opened her eyes, the room felt too bright, too much; there was something yellow and repugnant about the glaringly lit room. She glanced over to Natalya, and without her permission, her heavy eyes lingered: Natalya was completely unaware, absorbed in whatever book she was reading, listening to her music, ignoring everything and everyone.

It was a shame that not everything ignored her back. Ignore them both.

She knew what was coming, when she saw them sidling over: a friend from her class, her boyfriend, and one of his friends. Erzsébet looked down to her food again and prayed for quiet. Her hand shielded her eyes.

"Hey, Erzsébet," her friend said, sitting down beside her. There was something superficial about the casual way she did it.

But Erzsébet had to look up. She smiled to them all, making room on the table. "Hi."

"We haven't seen you around so much lately," the girl said. "I heard you've been skipping swim practice, too."

"I've been feeling sick."

She did. Her throat was closing in on itself, wrapping itself up like rolled up paper, and she could feel the dampness of her hands. It reminded her of Natalya's gymnastics: what would happen if she ever got clammy palms? Would she lose her grip, despite the chalk, and hit the mat below with a thud?

"Oh."

There was an expectant pause. The girl and her boyfriend glanced to one another, with small, humoured smiles on their faces. Their eyes were entitled and gleefully curious.

"Is it true you're dating Natalya Arloskovsky?"

They hadn't even bothered to learn her surname, and the later half of it trickled out with laughter, being pure guesswork.

* * *

"Do you wish I was a boy?" Erzsébet asked very softly, pulling away to tie back her hair, as she always had during her childhood. Her jaw was now more visible, the bone beneath hard and unyielding.

Natalya looked at her strangely and didn't speak a word. She didn't speak when Erzsébet kissed her again, or when she pulled up her hand to touch her cheek.

"Pretend my skin is tougher," Erzsébet whispered, feeling Natalya's fingers curl against her cheek. The Belarusian closed her eyes a little too tight, and her skin wrinkled with displeasure. Erzsébet didn't stop her when Natalya's hand began to unfurl, tracing Erzsébet's skin softly, up and down, up and down.

Natalya's free hand came to hold Erzsébet's curved hip, which seemed to fit perfectly in the palm of her hand: two jigsaw pieces that had met at last. Her hand moved; it crept up to Erzsébet's waist, and Natalya could feel her breath beneath her, and her fingers stretched uncertainly and felt the curve of Erzsébet's breast. Her hand pressed harder, and she could feel the strong jut of ribs, rising and falling, and her fingers could feel the ridges between them. Guiltily, she imagined the skin beneath. She saw Erzsébet's legs on her bed again and knew this time that she could touch them if she liked.

"Fuck this," Natalya exhaled, taking her hand away, retreating from the hearth. She touched herself uneasily: her hand darted to her hair, brushed it back, and then she touched her jaw gently, just as Erzsébet had.

Erzsébet wasn't a boy, by any means. Those ribs hid beneath the soft curve of a woman, and breasts lay above them. Natalya couldn't pretend that her skin was rough, or that she had stubble, a low voice, that her breasts weren't there, or that her body didn't unravel her.

"Don't say that." It was a plea. Erzsébet reached for Natalya's hand and held it tenderly, soothing her scorched fingers, and watched her with dismay. Natalya's hand was snatched away.

When Natalya had said those words, it sounded like the time she had promised to protect her; when Natalya had said that she would stab someone, or burn them, for her sake.

"I know you don't wish I was a boy," Erzsébet murmured, cautiously coming closer and sitting beside Natalya, their thighs side by side and Natalya's vision straight ahead. Natalya had curled her hands so tightly that her knuckles protruded. She could punch someone with that hand.

"I do wish it. How would you know?"

"I just know."

"You don't."

"I do."

Despite herself, Erzsébet couldn't help but smile sadly. She didn't try and touch Natalya anymore.

* * *

She wanted to reply. She was thinking it: no. Of course not. No a thousand times, not now, not ever. She wanted to laugh off such a stupid claim and flirt with her friend's boyfriend a little, put her hand somewhere she shouldn't, and smile warmly at him. She wanted him to kiss her somewhere secret and for everyone to find out: she'd start the rumours.

But the lights in the canteen still stung her eyes, and they burnt. She managed to shake her head, but her friend was reaching to her, asking her gentle, vague questions: are you okay? Is she okay?

It was embarrassing to cry like this in front of everyone, because of a question like that. Erzsébet wiped her eyes as if something irritating had accidentally fallen into them; an eyelash, perhaps, or dust, or ash.

The worst thing was glancing up and seeing Natalya looking back. Anyone but her.

* * *

"What would you like me to be, as a boy?" Erzsébet asked her instead. "Not like Roderich, right?"

"I don't want you, Erzsébet," Natalya said, looking at her directly now. The whites of her eyes had turned strained and pink; her irises looked even bluer. Cornflowers, Natalya had said, were Belarus' national flower. "I hate you," she said. She swiped roughly at her nose to wipe the snot, and she swallowed thickly. "I fucking hate you."

Erzsébet allowed the words. She had heard Natalya swear plenty of times, but those two syllables in particular felt like shoves. It was worse than hate, because Natalya had a long list of hates: sissies and German and Austria and hot weather and her family, sometimes.

"Okay," she murmured. She looked down at her hands, her head bent like a martyr, and felt the heat of her shame; each artery and each vein swelled with the unbearable burn of it.

She couldn't stay any longer. She stood, and took the bobble from her hair, which fell and softened her face, her features made limp by this dragging conversation.

"I know you don't, but that doesn't mean you can say those things to me."

Natalya didn't argue with her. She watched with her sore, red eyes, and held her knees tightly in her hands. Erzsébet murmured a goodbye and closed the door on her way out.

* * *

"Why is she crying?"

Three uneasy, guilty faces looked back. Caught red handed. Roderich looked at the table.

"We don't know," the boyfriend explained, glancing to his girlfriend. "We were just talking and she started crying."

Erzsébet accepted Roderich's offer of tissues and crumpled them in her hands, wiping her eyes gently. Her tears were hot and stung her face, in their slow dribbling motion.

"What were you talking about?" Natalya demanded, her eyes imperious. She didn't look at Erzsébet.

She was met with silence.

Eventually, it was the friend of the boyfriend who spoke up. "We heard that you and Erzsébet were going out. We asked her about that."

For a moment, the Belarusian was made quiet. Her eyes wandered to Erzsébet, who made sure not to look at her back: she was sat wiping her nose and her eyes, recovering, her gaze passing through every physical object in its path.

"It's none of your business." The lurch in Natalya's chest only angered her further. "It's none of your business and you've made her cry. What kind of shitty friend are you?" she asked the girl in particular, whose eyes widened with both alarm and indigence.

"She didn't do anything wrong." The boyfriend. He stood and met Natalya, his jaw tilted upwards. He gently reached for her wrists. "Cool it. Cool off. Your friend's upset."

The fucker knew it wasn't an issue of friendship. He had been sniggering about it with his girlfriend.

It was stupidly impulsive of her to try and punch him. He was nearly twice her height and likely fifty pounds heavier than her. As he would point out to teachers afterwards, he had been trying to defuse the situation, not detonate it.

They ended up on the floor; it was by no means glamorous. He was swearing profusely, trying to grapple with this freak of a girl and get her off of him. She was holding his skin tightly, nails digging into his temple, his cheeks, her sharp knee shoved against his groin, and she was talking very quickly in her vicious mother tongue; the way she widened her eyes at him, the way she tightened her grasp with certain words, made it seem as though she expected him to understand. She didn't seem as though she was trying to actively hurt him, but rather just keep him pinned: to force him to listen to her. On the ground like this, neither one of them was truly taller.

She could hear Erzsébet knelling her name, aghast and alarmed, and she could feel her pushing at her shoulder to try and force her off, begging. The girlfriend too was helping, trying to fish beneath Natalya's armpits and yank her away, while Roderich was still half sat in his seat, peeking over and wondering whether he should call for help.

It should have been embarrassing, to be uncivilised like that, but it didn't quite feel real.


	8. Chapter 8

The sound of fingers tapping sporadically on a computer keyboard. One wooden desk between them. The room smelt of the sort of musk that accumulated within decade old carpets and persistent air fresheners and trapped warmth.

The firmness of the chair dug into Natalya's backside, but she pushed herself against it anyway. Legs stretched out and crossed at the ankle, arms crossed against her chest, back slumping against the chair and her jaw particularly square, her lips already pursed.

"Natalya," the headmistress said, looking over her glasses at her. "Are you going to cooperate with me?"

Natalya glanced to her. Shrugged.

"Firstly, you ought to know that your punishment will be an exclusion. You will complete your work alone and be excluded from all extracurricular activities for this term."

Natalya leant her head back and inspected the ceiling. No more Wednesday afternoons with Erzsébet.

"However, I don't want to talk through your punishment extensively. You understand me," the headmistress went on, sighing and adjusting in her seat. "Why did you lash out at Peter?"

Peter. His name was noted in Natalya's mind.

"There are no other instances of fighting on your school record here. Involved in gymnastics, I see. Some quite impressive grades..." The headmistress tried to catch her eyes. "You're a bright girl."

Natalya was the bright one. Her mother had told her that when she was young, and had seemed to treasure it, even seeming to enjoy Natalya's nonchalance on the matter: she didn't need to be validated, she would never be a needy academic. Being bright could get you somewhere, apparently. It got you past factory jobs, like Dannik at the refrigerator plant in the city centre. Like Natalya's father.

Being bright got you into Austria. It did not make you happy.

"Peter said that there were some words shared before you pushed him."

Finally, Natalya's eye did flicker up, sullen but curious.

"Some comment about Erzsébet Héderváry..."

There was that new found depth in her chest again, like an internal bleed that drained her. She straightened up, pushing against the chair and crossing one leg over the other. She watched her adversary but didn't speak yet.

"She's a bright girl too." A jab at the computer, that brought up Héderváry's school record. After lingering on it for a moment, the headmistress looked back to Natalya.

"Now, Natalya," she sighed, "I know you come from a different country: a country with different values, beliefs, laws. I understand that your country may not be..." She struggled to find the words.

"What?" Natalya asked. She could feel the bleeding still. Or perhaps it was radiation poisoning: perhaps it was a block of uranium lodged within her, that poisoned everything, every drop of blood, that passed by. She must be contaminated.

"You may have been taught things in a different way, Natalya. About different groups of people." The headmistress smiled slightly to her, but the gesture seeming forced. There was an uneasy anxiety in her face. "We have resources for that. There are people you can talk to. Your actions aren't excused, but we try and help our students here."

Natalya could feel a burgeoning hardness in her chest, and a reactionary irritation, like the too potent smell of raw onion, or a sudden flash of light, hardened her face and her heart. She didn't speak for a few moments, drawing herself away from these forceful imaginings.

"My nationality has nothing to do with this. Don't Austrian girls ever hit anyone?" Natalya asked, stiff in her seat. "I heard Austrians get more racist by the year, because the Eastern Europeans are taking their jobs. Can I have resources for that?"

That wasn't the chord the headmistress had wanted to strike. She soon dismissed Natalya, and although she had originally been left with only a mark of aggravation, when the room was quiet again, and Natalya was out of sight, the absence of the abrasive young woman, the silence that replaced her, filled the room with lingering pity. The headmistress regretfully continued her daily tasks.

Some people never took what could help them.

* * *

Outside in the corridor, Erzsébet was waiting, sat on another hard seat and leaning against it. The sky outside was still hopeful and lightly coloured, though Erzsébet's train had left by now, and she had scrolled over the time table a few times, wanting to know when she would have to go.

Teachers had eventually be called to deal with Natalya. They had gone to grab her, but she had risen, raising her hands defensively and avoiding touches. Her dark eyes had looked so furious that for a moment, Erzsébet wondered how the Natalya in top of Peter could really be the Natalya who cried over tenderness. But she knew they were one in the same: she had known all along that Natalya possessed something a little brutal, shielding the deep sensitivity of her.

Erzsébet had spent the rest of her lunch in one of the bathrooms, carefully blotting her tears with sodden toilet paper, that disintegrated beneath her fingers when ran under the tap. When people walked in and awkwardly moved past her, she ignored them, concentrating instead of her pink eyes and smudged make up.

When the door finally opened and Natalya strode out, Erzsébet rose to meet her: Natalya recoiled ever so slightly, stepping back as if she had seen a hidden snake. They watched each other carefully until Natalya regained herself.

"What are you doing here?"

"I was waiting to see you." Erzsébet said, standing a little straighter than usual to match Natalya's posture. "Can I walk you to your room?"

"If you like."

Natalya readjusted her bag on her shoulder and began to walk, her eyes seeming to focus on a fixed point that Erzsébet couldn't see. Today, Erzsébet didn't spend any longer than a moment trying to infiltrate Natalya's harshly guarded thoughts and gestures. She only walked beside her.

When they reached her room, Natalya glanced to her companion, ready to dismiss her. But Erzsébet came inside, apparently feeling entitled to a space here, and Natalya only shut the door behind her, sealing the vault. She looked to Erzsébet and readied herself.

"I can't believe you did that today," Erzsébet said, holding her bag still, despite the uncomfortable weight of it.

"You're angry with me?" Natalya's voice was disbelieving.

"You can't just hit people," Erzsébet scolded. "What kind of way is that to deal with people? Have you been expelled for it? Because you could be."

It only annoyed her further to see Natalya rolling her eyes as she passed by. Natalya was taking off her jacket, momentarily crushing it in between her palms before putting it down.

"No."

Nothing more. Erzsébet's expectation allowed a silence.

"You ignore me and then start a fight over me? Natalya, it makes no sense," Erzsébet continued irritably.

"Who says it was over you?"

"Well, wasn't it?"

Natalya turned to her and shrugged, only meeting her eyes for a monent. Her look was broody and unkind.

"Shit, Natalya," was all Erzsébet could muster. "I get it. You're freaked out. But if you'd spoken to me about things instead of attacking someone, your feelings would be a lot less obvious to everyone else. You don't have to trust me, but do yourself a favour and trust someone."

She hated this. The push and pull, attract and reject, method that Natalya worked by. It was as if Natalya was building up a tolerance to poison.

Natalya scowled at her words and spent a moment processing them: she was so often drawn into her own thoughts that those around her simply had to accommodate the habit.

"You don't get it," she said finally, the words decisive.

"I won't ever if you don't explain it to me." Erzsébet's body loosened wearily with the exasperation of it all. After a little pause, she took a step closer to her, but didn't touch Natalya: she wouldn't risk too much. But they were close, and she had Natalya's reluctant attention now. "Talk me through it."

"Through what?" There seemed to be various things that she could divulge.

"Anything you want."

Erzsébet nodded to the bed, but Natalya refused. They were too close there; that was where the trouble started. Erzsébet sat down and Natalya leant on the wall opposite.

"Okay. Fighting was stupid," the Belarusian admitted.

"No kidding."

When the comment received a cross look, Erzsébet apologised. She leant back on her hands and watched Natalya, letting her speak freely.

"I used to get into fights. When I was younger," Natalya said. She touched her neck, a vulnerable, soft spot, gently as she spoke; her fingers traced the veins beneath the skin. "I was angry about things. At home. And kids found it funny to annoy me."

Everything had been an attack. The wrong look, the wrong smile. Simple, small things affronted her. Were they mocking her?

As she grew, she had become more resistant. The emotional weathering had hardened the core beneath. Rather than fighting, she could withdraw within herself; like the soul left the body, she could shirk off those around her.

But this hadn't been about her. Erzsébet had been crying. And although Erzsébet was tough, she wasn't her.

"Are you angry now?"

"Yeah."

"How come?"

Natalya smiled a little.

"Come on."

Her fingers were still holding her neck. They were more stationary now, cupping the skin beneath her chin. If she pressed harder, she would choke her windpipe.

"Me," Erzsébet answered, sitting up straighter, as if she was now the one in trouble. "But why anger?"

Natalya shook her head, brushing back her hair gently and folding her arms again. Her eyes turned to the floor.

"It's not right," she murmured. "It's just not right."

"But why?"

Erzsébet wanted to hold her. But she knew that what she regarded as protection would only be an attack to Natalya. She kept her distance.

"Women aren't designed for one another. You dated a boy; you know that," Natalya went on, heart pickling at the thought of Roderich. She bet he'd never thrown a punch for Erzsébet.

"But you don't like boys, do you?"

Erzsébet said it slowly, and while her words were curious, they weren't based on guesses. Her eyes met Natalya's solemnly, and she understood that saying that aloud had wounded her. She could see Natalya's stubbornness, her rough features, softening; her endurance draining from her face like blood from a cut.

"Not yet." Natalya's eyes flitted away from their conversation. "Some women don't for a while."

Yeah, Nat. They're called lesbians.

Erzsébet didn't say such a thing; she knew nothing good would come from that word. She rubbed the back of her neck and looked to the ceiling.

"Okay," she murmured. "But you can still like me and like a boy later on. I won't stop you," she promised her, smiling to her, despite the surging, saddened sympathy that pushed inside her. She patted the bed. "Come sit here?"

Natalya took the offer. Now she was close to Erzsébet again, she wanted to be closer still. She looked to her sincerely.

"What if I don't want to swap you?" she asked her very quietly. "How do I explain that?"

Erzsébet smiled in a brave, pained way. She didn't dare touch her.

"I'm not sure," she admitted. She couldn't help but laugh gently, and thankfully, Natalya did too.

"We're unlucky, aren't we?" Natalya whispered, her smile warm nonetheless. "Like how you always lose things."

"Tell me about it," Erzsébet laughed, lying back on the bed and covering her eyes with her arms.

Natalya watched her with gentle eyes. Seeing Erzsébet lying on her bed in this way didn't feel weird. Erzsébet was just resting there. Natalya just watching her. Friends did that together.

"Are you still angry?"

"No, Nat. But no more fights." She paused. "Will you be angry if I hug you? I won't do anything else," she promised, pulling away an arm to peek at her with just one eye.

"Its okay."

In an organised, originally clumsy manner, Erzsébet sat back up and wrapped her arms around Natalya, sinking into her thankfully. She closed her eyes, and Natalya did too, squeezing her tighter. They were quiet together, taking refuge against one another, in the quietness of Natalya's bedroom.

"Can I ask you more questions?" Erzsébet asked after a little while. They were still curled around each other, their faces close.

"I guess."

"Let's say you didn't want to swap me with anyone. Hypothetically," she reassured quickly. "Why is that scary for you? Your family knowing?" She paused, and smiled a little. "It's less weird than you dating your step-brother, right?"

Natalya smiled nauseously, closing her eyes for a few moments and sighing, leaning against Erzsébet further. How could she live with another woman at home? Burying herself under secrecy, to be cautious at all times. What about the important milestones, like a wedding, a family? What kind of life could they have?

"They would be unhappy," Natalya said finally, opening her eyes. "Wouldn't your parents? Grandparents?"

"A little, at first, I guess. But they'd get used to it," Erzsébet said, remembering the phone call she had had with her mother.

"I don't think it's a good way to live," Natalya admitted.

"Like I said, Nat. You don't have to live it forever. You don't even have to live it for a little while with me," Erzsébet promised her, though there a straining undertone to her voice, like a string of an instrument being tuned too high. It didn't match her smile.

Their eyes were naturally drawn to each other. Erzsébet was trying hard to hide her melancholy, but there was a slackness to her features, a dimness in her eyes, that may have been caught by someone more aware.

"I want to." Natalya nodded to herself. "But I want to live it privately. I don't want you, or anyone, to think of me, or us, as something that we're not."

Erzsébet knew that she couldn't make Natalya more comfortable, but it was still disheartening, and sad, to see her grappling with their relationship: to see her try and change and mould it in such a way that it didn't fit into where it naturally ought to. To see Natalya do that to herself, and to divert and hide her feelings in the process.

"Okay, Nat," Erzsébet said, smiling softly to her. She hoped that Natalya could withstand her this time. "Your rules."


	9. Chapter 9

A lavender afternoon: the sky was soft and luxurious, coloured with vivid, peach pinks and floral lilac. This sky filled Natalya's room with a lingering, radiant glow, filtering through the slats of the blinds and leaving dusky, golden light.

Spring had finally come. In just a matter of weeks, their school year would be over. Their exams would hurry past through adrenaline drenched days, and cramped hands, and pausing worries and uncertainties - and then it would be over. They would know their fates and what they were able to do with them: Erzsébet had applied to a university in Budapest, and was excited and hopeful to go.

Erzsébet and Natalya entered together, the former chatting and the latter listening quietly as they came into the room.

"So I said," Erzsébet recounted, laughing as she talked, "I said to her how stupid that was, to try and swim laps professionally wearing a designer bikini, but, I dunno, she seemed like she was gonna do it."

Her speech became so lazy, Natalya thought as she turned to face her. She came close.

"I don't think bikinis are very aerodynamic."

"Me neither," said Erzsébet with an amused sigh. She tanned in this weather, and she seemed to carry the warmth of the spring in both the tone of her skin and the beauty of her smile. "Imagine if you did acrobatics in a bikini."

"I suppose it'd fall off." Natalya faced her and smiled just a little, observing her fondly. They stood opposite each other like man and wife, their fingers loosely slid through each other's.

Perhaps it was the recent weather, but Erzsébet thought that Natalya looked warmer these days. Happier. Her smiles were easier and simple; they weren't sardonic jokes to be unraveled and understood. The tensions in her body had evaporated. Her jaw was softer; her looks were kinder; her words were slow and attentive, just like her assuring touches.

"I wouldn't complain," Erzsébet confessed, laughing. She reached to cup Natalya's cheek and kissed her gently on her lips, closing her eyes and relaxing in the motion. The faint smell of her perfume passed by. "But don't feel like you have to."

These sleepy, spring afternoons had become their greatest peace. They would sit and study together, lie together on Natalya's bed and discuss their day. Natalya would show Erzsébet the songs she liked, or teach her words in Belarusian or Russian, or plait her hair, or talk to her about something she had read on the Internet. Erzsébet liked to kiss plenty, until she felt just slightly light headed; Natalya laughed at her when she was reduced to finding the chapstick in her purse. She liked to trace Natalya's features with her fingers and watch how she reacted: often, Natalya looked like a lioness, irritated by the arrival of a fly on her pelt.

They did whatever they wanted in Natalya's room. Nobody had to see.

Yet they never said that word. They felt it sometimes, looming; when Erzsébet glanced to Natalya in a quiet moment, when Natalya stroked her hair in private and closed her eyes to think, Erzsébet knew that that word was on her mind - perhaps on the tip of her tongue. She had seen Natalya's dismayed thoroughness with the issue: she had heard new references in her speech that had never been there before; Kinsey, Freud, Ellis, Hirschfeld; deviation and inversion and perversion and disease. Natalya asked questions that had never occurred to her before. Do you think there's a gene for homosexuality? Sometimes Erzsébet saw little furrows in her brow, like waves on the tide, and she would kiss her cheek very softly, and would say that she loved her. She watched her more carefully on those days.

Sometimes, Natalya was still angry. Within their private sphere, on their tiny isle, sometimes it was still possible for her to curse her luck, despite their separatism. She washed ashore at paradise but feared the flowers were toxic, and the food contaminated. Sirens lined the shores and soothed her heart.

You couldn't always see danger. Without a Geiger counter, ambling in Chernobyl was just a hobby. You had to be afraid sometimes to be aware.

There was also loss in their silence.

At home, in the ignorance of her grandparents' house, Erzsébet would sometimes look at herself as she dressed in the morning. She held dresses against herself and looked unsure, in the same way that she had looked at her thick brows as a child and wondered why there was something innately wrong with them.

It was usually approval that made her relax again. She temporarily forgot, whenever someone said how cute or sweet or pretty she looked in her dress. She could return to her girlfriend with her hair down and her dress on.

She could also go with less awareness, on the good days. With stray hairs on her knees and her dark brows, and her mascara left at home, abandoned. It didn't change a thing. It didn't change them.

* * *

While they were discreet, they had become an oddity. When they weren't in Natalya's room, they never held hands or even walked too close: this was Natalya's rule. They didn't kiss, they didn't comfort, they didn't speak too softly, dip their heads too near.

However, everyone knew. Of course, everyone knew.

It was obvious when Erzsébet came to the gymnastic practices. Every week she would be found sitting on a bench, sometimes wearing a denim jacket that was supposedly Natalya's. She brought treats for the Belarusian: she always came with a water bottle, sometimes a sport drink, and usually some variation of fruit, or a granola bar, or even something savoury. She brought work to do with her, which she did hunched over the bench, but she always seemed able to glance up just when Natalya was performing something good.

Natalya's victories were hers too. She grinned at her and signalled thumbs up.

Admittedly, Erzsébet loved to watch her. She loved to see the power of her body. She loved to see Natalya in control, even if her flips and jumps always inspired some fear in her audience, and she loved to see the sweat on her skin, the deep, plum pink of her cheeks after exercise.

Of course, Natalya was drawn to her by the end of the practice. She accepted all of her offerings, but didn't sit beside her anymore. She smiled to see Erzsébet wearing her jacket, and would sometimes push down the collar if necessary, or smooth over a crumple.

People sometimes tried to question them. They sought validation that Natalya simply would not give.

"Are you and Erzsébet lesbians?" a classmate would ask nosily. Those who asked never came alone: they were always in pairs, or packs.

"Who's Erzsébet?" Natalya asked, sat right beside her. She flicked through one of her serious looking books and didn't look up. She smiled when she heard one of Erzsébet's disbelieving laughs.

"I thought you had a thing for your stepbrother."

"I don't have a stepbrother."

Erzsébet had taught her that. Getting angry only proved your guilt (though, as Erzsébet had pointed out in a hurry, guilt was not the right word, never the right word, she promised). It was better to simply be ridiculous. It neither confirmed nor denied anything, and it often frustrated people.

Perhaps people thought that Natalya was odd. But they always had. She imagined now that they always would.

* * *

Natalya did not tell her family about Erzsébet. When she called home, Erzsébet was known simply as, 'that girl at school.' She was a vague theme in their conversations that could be fit by many different girls.

Her family didn't ask - and why would they? They were glad that Natalya didn't seem to be completely alone. Being abroad seemed to have widened her perspective and allowed Ivan to forfeit the starring role.

Sometimes, when Natalya held Erzsébet, when her fingers touched her soft waist, she still felt a surge of nausea. Her eyes would, between two blinks, move to Erzsébet, inspect her, and then fall back. She would fall back into herself and wonder, 'Why Erzsébet?' Sometimes when she kissed her, and when she felt that heady want for her, when her hands tightened without her command, when her body pulled and nudged and dragged towards her Erzsébet, she wondered how she was any different from the careless touch of a less moved man.

She thought about Roderich. She wondered if she was any better than him. She wondered if she was any better than the boys she heard talking about fucking, grinding, pounding; the men back home who grinned when they were told they could walk a girl home.

She decided that she was, but only because she had never given in. Perhaps Erzsébet said it was okay, and on occasion, when the room was calm and quiet, tried to guide Natalya's hands a little more, but Natalya could not be convinced yet. She focused on the softness of love; caresses of her cheek, strokes to her hair, kisses against her temple. These gestures were sincere, but they were also talismans against the carnality that merged man and wife.

She didn't want to back out. But yet, she had the feeling that if she stepped in, she would be lost all together.

When Erzsébet was gone and travelling home on her train, Natalya considered the concept that she was, slowly but surely, being sucked into a black hole. Where she would emerge, nobody knew.

Nobody she knew had seen the other side.

Yet, the gamble seemed appealing. In the weary darkness of her room, Natalya would pretend again, just like the first time. It didn't have to be Ivan; it could be any man, she thought, rushing to find a face in her mind. She squeezed her eyes shut and imagined His kiss. On her lips, and her neck. She imagined His nakedness before her; firm, stark veins, little blades of hair across His chest and down his stomach.

She tried to imagine touching Him. She imagined less kisses and more explicit imagery. Her eyes squeezed tighter, and she felt the clouds drawing in in her chest, she felt each of her breaths. The deeper the black before her eyes, the more space and concentration she allowed her imaginings, the more she felt an untouchable bile like substance coat her mind and line the bottom of her throat.

It was harder to sleep on those nights. She didn't mention them to Erzsébet.

* * *

Erzsébet asked Natalya about Belarus sometimes. Very casually, and lightly, she would ask what she figured she'd do there. Like, jobs, and stuff, she'd say. Were the universities any good?

Natalya answered simply enough. She explained the current job market. She explained the living conditions. She explained the culture and the needs of the culture.

Erzsébet didn't want to let her go back. They were blessed with the easiness of communication, through phone calls and Internet services, and even through rail connections, but Erzsébet didn't think that she would like to see Natalya go back.

Things weren't perfect, but she'd come far here. Natalya had a girlfriend here. She had a girlfriend who she loved. She had a girlfriend who loved her back.

Erzsébet just wanted to keep her around here. She couldn't, and she wouldn't, pretend that her own home was always the best place to be, but she had heard the stories of Russia. And while Natalya always told her that Belarus was not Russia, and that Belarusian was not Russian, and that White Russians were not Russians at all, Erzsébet doubted that the situation in Belarus could really be all that different.

Maybe she'd just heard the bad stories, but it wasn't a risk she would like to take.

"Nat," she said to her one day. It was a Saturday in the town where Erzsébet lived with her grandparents - their exams drew closer by the day. Natalya had taken the train to see her. They were sat in a cafe by the windows; Natalya was people watching as they talked together. "Have you ever thought of studying here for a few more years? I know you don't always like it very much, but..."

She smiled to her apologetically, and began to play with the straw in her strawberry milkshake, dipping it in and out of the foamy liquid.

"Yes, actually," Natalya replied, her heart aching with affection. "I've thought about it."

She knew of Erzsébet's worries. Everyone had heard the stories, after Russia had been highlighted under the lights of the Winter Olympics. And she could easily imagine going home and not uttering a single word about a boy ever again. At least before she had had Ivan. An eccentricity, but not an illness.

"Really?" Erzsébet stopped her fiddling. Her eyes widened hopefully, captured by Natalya. "You think you'll study somewhere here?"

"I've been discussing it with my parents," Natalya said. "My mother thinks it's a good opportunity for me."

Erzsébet held her face in her hands for a moment, smiling so widely that she knew eventually it would hurt.

"Hey, fuck you, Natalya," she said when her hands withdrew, her smile remaining. "You knew, didn't you? How much this has been on my mind. You knew it, you rat!"

Natalya laughed gently, shaking her head and leaning back in her seat, watching people pass them by.

"Why would I mention it if you never ask?" she asked, glancing back to her girlfriend. "Stop swearing. You're embarrassing me."

They smiled to one another, and Erzsébet's foot played with Natalya's out of sight beneath the table.

* * *

The summer came, their exams having passed in an almost anticlimactic blur of timetabled dates and papers, and along with it arrived the heat that always made Natalya uncomfortable. She burnt very easily and detested the smell of sun cream, though she would never go out without it on. She became grouchy if subjected to the sun for too long.

Summer meant no school, and Erzsébet usually went back to Budapest during the summer. This year, she requested that Natalya stay with her and her grandparents. Natalya too requested that she come home at Christmas instead of at summer this year, and her family, while they missed her, didn't see this as a bad idea.

Erzsébet's father wanted to know why Erzsébet and the other girl didn't just come to Budapest together. Erzsébet's mother didn't humour that question. She only reassured her husband that their daughter would be home soon, and for good.

And so, Natalya stayed with Erzsébet's grandparents, who spoke enough German for them all to communicate.

In the day, Erzsébet and Natalya enjoyed themselves together. Natalya would go through her ritual appliance of sun cream and lotions, and they would head out into the park, or to the town. Sometimes they spent days in with a fan on, watching movies, or cooking together: Natalya made potato pancakes for the family one evening.

The real change came when Erzsébet's grandparents went out to meet their friends for the evening.

It was inevitable from the very start that their privacy would lead to closeness. They kissed in the thick heat of the season, and enjoyed the quietness of the house. Erzsébet didn't coax. They were contented beside one another, sat on Erzsébet's bed with the TV on mute.

"Erzsébet?" Natalya requested in their pause, her hand on top of hers. "It's okay if you touch me."

The Hungarian tilted her head at her slightly, cautious about this development.

"We don't have to, Nat," she reassured, reaching over to brush a little hair behind her ear. "I know we're alone, but, I don't expect us to."

"But I've wanted to," Natalya explained. She had spent so long trying to force the idea of Him. It had shoved away her desire for Erzsébet, and had crippled and hurt that want. She didn't want to feel like that forever.

"You never seem comfortable."

"I know. But I think you have to show me."

Erzsébet was quiet for a few moments.

"You're really sure?"

"Yes."

It was the same, for a while. They kissed, drew close to one another. Natalya felt that awful burn, but this time, she didn't try and act on it: Erzsébet acted for her. It was frightening, like her hands accidentally slipping from the gym apparatus, and her awareness in the seconds before she hit the mat.

But she was safe, too. And she knew, she had known this very strongly beneath all of her worries, that she wanted this. Very badly.

It was Erzsébet's gentleness that soothed her. She asked her if she was okay and made sure she was comfortable at every moment. She smiled to her kindly, but Natalya could see her own want reflected back in the Hungarian's face. She felt it in their kisses, and eventually, as if listening from a far away place, she heard it in her own breath.

"I love you," Natalya whispered, dazed and warm. Her hands were trembling when she reached to hold her girlfriend's cheek.

"I love you too," Erzsébet grinned, kissing Natalya's forehead and carefully moving aside, lying next to her. Her fingers trailed over Natalya's stomach and waist, and she admired her body silently. "You feeling okay?" she asked her, just wanting to be sure.

"Yeah." Natalya nodded, reaching for her hand. "A lot better."

Her sweat cooled slowly, and the heat left with it. Erzsébet watched her put on her pyjamas, smiling as she watched her. When she returned, Erzsébet lay with Natalya's arm wrapped over her, and they were inseparable until they heard a car pull in home.

* * *

At the end of the summer, Natalya turned eighteen. Her birthday was spent with the Hedéváry's, who took her out for dinner on a cooling August evening. The weather was beginning to change again, with the nights darkening sooner and the air growing cooler.

"Happy birthday, Natalya," Erzsébet said in the privacy of her bedroom. She presented her with a little box, and when opened, it revealed two silver necklaces - one half for each of them.

"It makes a love heart," Natalya said, lifting one half up, dangling it on her fingers. "I'll take the left, you take the right."

"Why's that?" Erzsébet reached and took her half, and got Natalya to held her clasp it around her neck. "You can wear it underneath your shirt. I can wear it underneath mine, too."

"The right side pumps the blood to the lungs, and the left side receives this blood and pumps it around the body."

"So what?" Erzsébet laughed, remembering that fact from her biology classes.

"You're the reason we're together, not me," Natalya said, quietly despite the closed door, wrapping her arms around Erzsébet's waist, not feeling anything but warmth in her body, and resting her chin on her shoulder. "You did the hard work."

"I don't think that's true..." Erzsébet looked over to her. Eighteen had been a hard year for Natalya to reach. "Let me put your necklace on."

They switched places, and Natalya dipped her head so that Erzsébet could clasp the necklace on.

"I know you worked hard too," Erzsébet murmured, face concentrated as she tried to work the mechanism of the necklace with her fingernails. "And I know you know that."

Weeks passed, and both girls prepared for a new step in their lives. University required responsibility, and especially for Natalya. While Erzsébet would be living with her parents in Budapest, Natalya would remain in Austria, alone.

Natalya wouldn't say how she felt about the train time between them, or how she felt about not being able to see Erzsébet every day, as she had become accustomed. Whenever Erzsébet tried to mention it, she simply said that Austria wasn't as far as Belarus, or she talked about how they could call one another whenever they liked.

Instead of trying to press the matter, Erzsébet simply tried to be prepared. She took Natalya shopping for home necessities: pots and pans and duvets. She bought her a plant for her windowsill.

When the day come for her to leave for Vienna, Erzsébet walked Natalya to the train station. There was something a little upsetting about seeing Natalya with just her two bags, departing yet again, by herself, again.

"I'll see you soon, okay?" Erzsébet said, watching as the train pulled in. She smiled to Natalya. "I'll come visit you when you get home from Belarus."

"Uh-hm." Natalya looked to her and smiled. Her necklace was tucked beneath her shirt. "Don't worry so much. I'll call when I get there."

"Yeah?"

"I promise."

They smiled to one another, and when it was time to go, Natalya allowed Erzsébet to kiss her on the cheek, and she squeezed her hand in return. Natalya went aboard, taking her bags herself, and found a place for them, making sure she got the window seat.

As the train pulled away, she saw Erzsébet waving to her from the platform, blowing her kisses and mouthing things to her. Natalya rested her chin on her hand and watched her, mouthing the same words back.

As soon as she got to Vienna, she'd call Erzsébet. It wouldn't be long.


End file.
